Fa Hien Cave, also Pahiyangala Cave, is situated in the district of

Kalutara Kalutara ( si, කළුතර, ta, களுத்துறை) or Kalutota is a major city in Kalutara District, Western Province, Sri Lanka. It is also the administrative capital of Kalutara District. It is located approximately south o ...

Western Province Western Province or West Province may refer to: * Western Province, Cameroon *Western Province, Rwanda *Western Province (Kenya) *Western Province (Papua New Guinea) *Western Province (Solomon Islands) *Western Province, Sri Lanka *Western Provin ...

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

and according to a rural legend, named after an alleged resident during historical times, namely

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

monk

Faxian Faxian (法顯 ; 337 CE – c. 422 CE), also referred to as Fa-Hien, Fa-hsien and Sehi, was a Chinese Buddhist monk and translator who traveled by foot from China to India to acquire Buddhist texts. Starting his arduous journey about age 60, h ...

(also Fa-Hien, or Fa Hsien). However, there is no archaeological or historical evidence to support this legend. Nonetheless, the site is of archaeological significance as

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch withi ...

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

ized

skeletal A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...

remains were discovered in the cave's sediments during excavations in the 1960s, the 1980s and in 2013.

Prehistoric human remains

In 1968 human

burial Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

sites were uncovered inside the cave by

Siran Upendra Deraniyagala Siran Upendra Deraniyagala (1 March 1942 – 5 October 2021) was a Sri Lankan archaeologist and historian, who served as the Director-General of Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology of Sri Lanka from 1992 to 2001. He also served as the ...

of the ''Sri Lankan Government Department of Archaeology'', who undertook a second excavation campaign with assistant W. H. Wijepala in 1988. The finds mainly consisted of

microlith A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 35,000 to 3,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. Th ...

stone tools, remnants of prehistoric fireplaces and organic material, such as

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring ( indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. ...

l and human remains.

Radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was de ...

indicates that the cave had been occupied from about 33,000 years ago, the

and

Mesolithic The Mesolithic ( Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymo ...

to 4,750 years ago, the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

in the Middle Holocene. Human remains of the several sediment deposits were analyzed at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

and studied by

Kenneth A. R. Kennedy Kenneth Adrian Raine Kennedy (June 26, 1930 – April 23, 2014) was an anthropologist who studied at the University of California, Berkeley. He was Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Anthropology and Asian Studies in the Divisi ...

and graduate student Joanne L. Zahorsky. The oldest fragments of human bone fossils are attributed to three children, a juvenile and two adults that show evidence of secondary

s. The bodies had been exposed to

decomposition Decomposition or rot is the process by which dead organic substances are broken down into simpler organic or inorganic matter such as carbon dioxide, water, simple sugars and mineral salts. The process is a part of the nutrient cycle and ...

and

scavengers Scavengers are animals that consume dead organisms that have died from causes other than predation or have been killed by other predators. While scavenging generally refers to carnivores feeding on carrion, it is also a herbivorous feeding b ...

and the bones were subsequently placed in graves. Additional fossil remains include those of another young child, dated to about 6,850 years BP and of a young woman (nicknamed ''Kalu-Menika'' by archaeologists), dated to about 5,400 years BP. Both individuals were also recovered from secondary burials. The discoveries allowed

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

and

paleontological Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of foss ...

comparative studies as the earliest occupants of Fa Hien, or Pahiyangala Cave lived during the same period as

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

an Cro-Magnon man and other

hominids The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the ...

in the

Eastern Hemisphere The Eastern Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth which is east of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and west of the antimeridian (which crosses the Pacific Ocean and relatively little land from pole ...

. Studies of teeth found in the cave indicate that the prehistoric population of

processed food by grinding nuts, seeds and grains in stone

querns Quern-stones are stone tools for hand- grinding a wide variety of materials. They are used in pairs. The lower stationary stone of early examples is called a saddle quern, while the upper mobile stone is called a muller, rubber or handstone. The ...

and that they continued to maintain a

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fung ...

lifestyle until about the 8th century BCE.

has yielded the earliest known microliths, which didn't appear in

until the Early Holocene. In June 2020 research carried out by the

Max Planck Institute Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (English Springer Spaniel), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of OBE) * Max (gorilla) ...

Griffith University Griffith University is a public research university in South East Queensland on the east coast of Australia. Formally founded in 1971, Griffith opened its doors in 1975, introducing Australia's first degrees in environmental science and Asian ...

in Australia, and the Sri Lankan Government Department of Archaeology, showed that occupants of the Fa-Hien Lena cave had developed

bow and arrow The bow and arrow is a ranged weapon system consisting of an elastic launching device (bow) and long-shafted projectiles (arrows). Humans used bows and arrows for hunting and aggression long before recorded history, and the practice was common ...

technology 48,000 BP. This is the oldest use of this technology outside of Africa. The researchers found items associated with freshwater fishing, as well as the working of fiber to make nets or clothing. Lead author of the study, Michelle Langley of Griffith University, said, "We also found clear evidence for the production of colored beads from mineral ochre and the refined making of shell beads traded from the coast, at a similar age to other 'social signaling' materials found in Eurasia and Southeast Asia, roughly 45,000 years ago." Other important Sri Lankan prehistoric sites at which human remains have been found include two other caves – Batadombalena (about 28,500 years old) and

Belilena Belilena is a well known large cave in Sri Lanka, located from the town of Kitulgala. Evidence of prehistoric human presence as early as 32,000 years ago was recorded at the site. The skeletal remains of ten individuals were discovered by Paul E ...

near

Kitulgala Kitulgala is a small town in the west of Sri Lanka. The Academy Award-winning ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' was filmed on the Kelani River near Kitulgala, although nothing remains now except the concrete foundations for the bridge. Kitulgala i ...

(about 12,000 years old) – and an open-air site, Bellanbandi Palassa (about 6,000 years old).

Sources

* Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, "Fa Hien Cave", in ''

Encyclopedia of Anthropology The ''Encyclopedia of Anthropology'' is an encyclopedia of anthropology edited by H. James Birx of Canisius College and SUNY Geneseo. The encyclopedia, published in 2006 by SAGE Publications, is in five volumes, and contains over 1,200 articles ...

'' ed.

H. James Birx Harry James Birx (born June 1, 1941 in Canandaigua, New York), is an American anthropologist and a professor of Anthropology at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. He is a distinguished research scholar at the State University of New York at Ge ...

(2006, SAGE Publications; )
"Pre- and Protohistoric settlement in Sri Lanka"
— S. U. Deraniyagala, Director-General of Archaeology, Sri Lanka * Kenneth A. R. Kennedy and Siran U. Deraniyagala, ''Fossil remains of 28,000-year old hominids from Sri Lanka,'' Current Anthropology, Vol. 30, No. 3. (Jun., 1989), pp. 394–399. * Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, T. Disotell, W. J. Roertgen, J. Chiment and J. Sherry, ''Biological anthropology of upper Pleistocene hominids from Sri Lanka: Batadomba Lena and Beli Lena caves'', Ancient Ceylon 6: 165-265. * Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, Siran U. Deraniyagala, W. J. Roertgen, J. Chiment and T. Disotell, ''Upper Pleistocene fossil hominids from Sri Lanka'', American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 72: 441-461, 1987.

References

External links

Official Web Portal

{{Navbox prehistoric caves Archaeological sites in Sri Lanka Buddhist caves in Sri Lanka Landforms of Kalutara District Prehistoric Sri Lanka

Prehistoric human remains

See also

Sources

References

External links