Prehistoric Midden Excavated in Northern Sri Lanka

GRONINGEN, THE NETHERLANDS—Phys.org reports that a shell midden dated to between 6,300 and 5,970 years ago has been discovered on Velanai Island in northern Sri Lanka by a team of researchers led by Thilanka Siriwardana of the University of Groningen and his colleagues. It had been previously thought that northern Sri Lanka was not occupied until the arrival of pastoralists from India in the fifth century B.C. because of its limited vegetation, lack of fresh water, and scarce raw materials for making stone tools. Analysis of the shell midden, however, indicates that prehistoric hunter-gatherers on Velanai Island relied heavily on mollusks, but also consumed sea bream, deer, wild boar, dugongs, and dolphins. Quartz and chert flakes imported from the mainland, more than 30 miles away, were also recovered. About three miles of this journey would have been over the sea, Siriwardana noted. “During the Late Pleistocene, lower sea levels would have exposed extensive coastal plains,” he said. “In semi-arid northern Sri Lanka, populations likely settled closer to these then-active shorelines. As sea levels rose during the Holocene, these landscapes were progressively submerged, effectively removing earlier sites from the visible archaeological record,” Siriwardana explained. To read about stone tools made 45,000 years ago in the country's rain forests, go to "Around the World: Sri Lanka."