Fa-Hien Cave in Sri Lanka
Excavation of 2009
The limited excavation was conducted in area B as part of the Department’s programme on palaeoclimatic change and human adaptation in collaboration with Sterling University in the U.K. The excavation was directed by me, the period spent in the field lasting from 2 March to 12 April 2005.
The 2009 excavation focused on the eastern section of the previously excavated area, as it contained deposits from all of the layers recognized during the 1986’ excavations. Careful cleaning of the exposed 3 metre reveals a complex stratigrapy, this section provides an intricate example of prehistoric cave stratigraphy in Sri Lanka including roof fall and pit outlines as well as the sedimentary history of the deposits. Over 95 discrete contexts were recognized along the section in 2009 excavations. Based on the 1986’ excavation, the contexts were related to the 5 layers recognized by Wijeyapala. This year’s re-excavation of the previous trench revealed that what was previously interpreted as bedrock comprised that occupation deposits reached at least 50-60 cm underneath the lowest levels of the previous excavation. A 5-8 cm thick habitation layer is present within this earlier rock shelter fill (fig), reflecting human use in times perhaps as early as 40- 45,000 years ago or beyond, thus making Fahien-lena one of the earliest sites of modern human settlement on the route of late Pleistocene human dispersal to South-Southeast Asia and Australia (Oppenheimer 2003; Mellars 2007). Exotic items of marine origin and microliths were found in these earlier layers, reflecting behavioral modernity humans in southwestern Sri Lanka during the Late Pleistocene. In a remarkable departure from other late Pleistocene rock shelters in southwestern Sri Lanka (e.g. Kithulgala Beli-lena, Batadomba-lena (Deraniyagala 1992; Wijeyapala 1997; Perera in press; Perera et al. in preparation), the tool kit of Fahien –lena human is dominated by cm-sized bone points apparently manufactured from limb bone of small mammals.
Photo Gallery
