Fig. 2.4. A human skeleton which represents the pre-history in Sri Lanka. This was discovered in the Pothana cave close to
Sigiriya. ( The photograph is by courtesy of the Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology)Fig 2.3. A bead found in a pre-historic habitation in
Sri Lanka. This has been made of a piece of bone of an
animal.
The prehistoric people preferred to eat snails.
Specially, they had eaten tree-snails and oysters
living in lagoons. The prehistoric people who
lived in the inner parts of the country went far to
get salt they needed for their food. The remnants
of the lagoon oysters found in Kithulgala
Belilena have been identified to be mixed with
salt brought from coastal areas.Technology
The stone tools are the only proof that exists to
know about the technology of this era. But it
is difficult to construct a complete idea about
the technology of the Stone Age on the basis of
gem mines in Rathnapura and the stone tools
discovered from the Iranamadu Formation. The
reason for this is the unavailability of enough
stone tools and the inadequacy of available
knowledge on the time of them.The stone tools in small size, which are called
geometric micro stone tools by the archaeologists,
help gain a descriptive knowledge on the
technology of the Stone Age. These have been
named so because the people who attempted to
produce these stone tools had given geometric
shapes to them.