histoy G-10 E

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2. Ancient Settlements


Introduction

Sri Lanka became a human habitation one
hundred and twenty five thousand years
ago. The Homo Sapiens, who are called the
modern man, migrated to this country across
the Indian Ocean. From then on, they spread
themselves in various parts of this country and
adapted themselves to different environmental
conditions in those areas. As they lived a
considerably long time period in this country,
with time their culture too changed. Based on
those changes which occurred in their culture,
the history of human existence in Sri Lanka
has been divided into three stages. The nature
of those stages and how they lived during those
stages will be described to you in this lesson.

2.1 Settlements in the Pre-historic Era


The period which was before the past that is
described by the literary sources is commonly
named as ‘the pre-historic era’. Two cultural
stages belonged to the pre-historic era of Sri
Lanka; the first one was the Stone Age which
existed for a long time; the second was the
period in which there was more tendency of
man towards depending on herbal food, use of
metals and the beginning of living in permanent
settlements. Among these, the word prehistoric
era is used to introduce the Stone Age and the
word proto-historic era is used to introduce the
second period.


Expansion of Settlements


Settlements in Sri Lanka were made by the early
Homo Sapien man. Homo Sapien expanded his


living in a wide geographical area by adapting
himself to different climatic zones in this country.
Their main dependency method was gathering
food by roaming and hunting.

There are many places where evidence, belonging
to the Stone Age in Sri Lanka, is found. The first
one is Rathnapura and the gem mines located
around Rathnapura. The stone tools used by
these people who lived in a distant age and the
bones of some extinct animals are deposited in
the layers of soil mixed with gravel , which is
called lode found in the mines about 90 feet deep
from the ground level. The gravel layers, which
were caused by erosion of mountainous regions
due to extremely heavy rainy periods during the
Pleistocene geographical era, deposited on the
lowlands in this manner.

There is a gravel layer covered with sandy soil
mixed with clay in the ground in the semi-arid
zone in Sri Lanka. The archaeologists have
named it as the Iranamadu formation. The
Iranamadu formation was deposited during the
short warm periods of the Pleistocene era. Some
tools which belonged to the Stone Age are found
in this gravel layer too.

The Expansion of Settlements in Different
Climate Zones

The community which belonged to the Stone
Age had lived in 6 main environmental zones
in Sri Lanka. These environmental zones are
(A) Semi-arid zone (B) Lowland dry zone (C)
Lowland intermediate dry zone (D) Wet Zone
(E) Mountainous dry intermediate zone (F)
Arid zone.
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