Fig. 2.5. This is a pre-historic cemetery. This was discovered in the premises of the Kolambageara Ranchamadama
government school in the Rathnapura district of the Sabaragamuwa province. This was discovered during excavations
done in 2007. The cemetery had been used around 3350 years ago.
Such a kind of tool is not more than 4.5 cm in
length. They had used more quartz and a little
of ‘Kahanda’ stones to make these micro stone
tools. As a whole, non- geometric micro stone
tools were made mostly. They had been made
in a way appropriate to the purposes of hunting
animals to cutting, scratching, chopping and
digging. Apart from these, some tools such as
hammers and grinding stones had been made
using granite.
Nature of People’s Physical Body
The skeletons discovered so far help us to
understand the size or the stature of the people
who belonged to the Stone Age. Generally, the
height of a grown male was 174 cm. A grown
female was not more than 166 cm in height. The
teeth of all of them were big in size and they had
a wide nose and a chin. The size of the brain of
a grown male was 1600 cm^3. It was 920 cm^3 in
a grown female. According to the view of the
anthropologists, the maximum lifespan of the
prehistoric man may have been about 35-40
years.
RitualsClear information of the rituals that existed in
the Stone Age is found at least to a certain extent
regarding the burial of dead bodies in that era.
A clear instance which reflects an effort taken to
do such a task has been discovered in the cave
of Rawana Ella close to Badulla. A skull of a
man perforated dividing it into two was found
in an excavation there. The rough edges and
the parts protruded outside the skull had been
rubbed, leveled and one side of it painted with
red ochre. Several parts of human skeletons,
painted with red ochre, have been discovered in
the cave in Pahiyangala. These evidences clearly
show that the dead bodies had been buried
somewhere and kept for some time until they
decayed; later the skeletons had been dug out
and buried back. The skeletons discovered in
the cave called ‘Batadomba Lena, in Kuruwita
had been curled and buried. Researchers have
pointed out that there are a number of cultural
and biological similarities between the people
who lived in the Stone Age and the aborigines
(Vedda community) in Sri Lanka.