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1
Introduction
The role played by the two concepts time
and space in archaeological interpretation is a
decisive one. Time is one of the essentials that
help to order the cultures into a chronological
sequence (Fagan 1991 :90). The passage of time
is a reection of the evolutionary dynamism
of culture, which carries its Longue Dure’e
processes and changes. Even the early stages
of the development of world archaeology in
the nineteenth century more or less coincided
with the invention of world chronologies
that were predominantly based on relative
methods (vide Thomsen 1836). Time brackets
generated through absolute methodologies that
were introduced in the 1940s and thereafter
appear as anchors which enable our nostalgic
uncertainties to be placed in rm locations
within the idea of cultural progress. This
article attempts to survey the evolution of the
concept of the ‘cultural past’ in Sri Lanka with
special reference to the development of its
cultural chronology.
Early phase
The development of chronology in the
archaeology of Sri Lanka is a matter of multi-
linear progression. At the outset, colonial
administrators played a pivotal role in this
process. In the late nineteenth century which
marks the early days of archaeology in the
country, most of the archaeological activities
carried out by colonial ofcers were exceptional.
In contrast, their contribution to explaining the
continuity of the cultural past of the country
did not see much progress due to the absence
of an explicit chronological frame of reference.
The colonial theory in general, considered the
subjugated local cultures as either ‘a-historical’
or otherwise as ‘deep-historical’. The former
was considered to be a state of ignorance and
the latter was a sessed through a perspective
of having the remotest existence. Having
either of these states justied a privilege of the
colonists to act on modernizing colonies while
legitimizing their colonial enterprise.
The colonial consciousness of Sri Lankan
history was pessimistic to an extraordinary
degree in its early days. This is clearly indicated
by the statements made by some of the
nineteenth century colonial gures which have
been frequently quoted in later writings. For
example, John Davy states:
The Singhalese (sic.) like the nations of Europe in the
middle ages, and like the people in general of almost the
whole of Asia and Africa at this instant, possess no accurate
records of events, are ignorant of genuine history, and are
not stifcientfy advanced to relish it. Instead of the one, they
have legendary tales; and instead of (sic.) other, historical
romances, which are the more complete the more remote the
period is (sic.) to which they belong . (1821:293):
Besides, Robert Percival, an Irish Captain who
arrived in Sri Lanka in 1796 wrote:
... the traditions of the natives threw no light whatever on the
ancient state of the island. In the traditionary (sic.) accounts
which are current among the Ceylonese, we have nothing more
than a mere catalogue of some of their princes, accompanied
~ a long list of high sounding titles, and some uninteresting
details of their petty wars and commotions (sic.). (1803:5).
Nimal De Silva Felicitation Volume. (2015). S. Mandawala, D.P. Chandrasekera, M.K. Dissanayake (ed)
171-178pp. Colombo. University of Moratuva.
WALKING LADDER: A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE DEVELOPMENT
OF CULTURAL CHRONOLOGY IN SRI LANKA
Raj Somadeva
*Postgraduate Institute of archaeology, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.
key words:
2
Thi misleading perspective was, perhaps
due to their unfamiliarity with the literature
of Buddhist monks who were aware of the
contents maintained the tradition of the
Mahavamsa ~ a chronicle of the fth century
CE which was written in the Pali language -
throughout a period of more than millennia.
Literate Buddhist clergy were aware of the
historical past of the country at least through
this source since pre- modern times. Besides,
stories carried in the Mahavamsa had already
been rooted in local folklore through the religio-
cultural interaction between the Buddhist clergy
and the people. Irrespective of the legendary
and narrative form of the presentation of this
historical literary work, it was able to provide
the people with a comprehensive historical
composition that contained historic individuals
and events within a historical time capsule.
There is a lack of direct evidence to elaborate
on how pre-modern society had contracted
their elements of history, but some of the
scanty proof remains. For example, some
of the seventeenth and eighteenth century
paintings of the Kandyan Kingdom, one from
Rangiri Dambulu Viharaya in the Matale district
and another from Hanguranketa Raja Maha
Viharaya in the Kandy district depict the arrival
of Prince Vijaya to Sri Lanka, which is one
of the major historic events described in the
Mahavamsa. Selection of such historic events
as a theme for wider public access may suggest
that there was a discourse about the identity
of the nation through historic knowledge of
the country at least within the literate fabric of
contemporary society.
The translation of the Mahavamsa into English
by William Tumour in 1836 made a tremendous
impact upon the pessimistic syndrome of the
colonial administrators about the history of
their colony. Soon they were convinced of the
signicance of the Mahavamsa as a historic
document which could positively contribute
to reconstruct the history of the people they
ruled. This is manifested by the writings of
some of the nineteenth century pioneers in
the studies oriental languages and culture
such as Wilhelm Geiger, Rhys Davids and H.
Oldenberg. Discussions based on historical
chronology appeared for the rst time as an
offshoot of the study of the Mahavamsa.
Geiger (1912) states:
...... We have to do with a monkish tradition. The
starting point of its chronological statement is the
year of the Buddha’s Death Here ctions were
made, building up and completing the tradition from
which subsequently, with those xed points as (sic.)
framework, the chronological system was developed that
(sic.) we nd in the Dipavamsa and (sic.) Mahavamsa
(1912: xxiii).
Studies of the historical chronicles, particularly
the Mahavamsa and the Dipavamsa were
fundamental to make up the ‘history’ of the
country in the latter part of the twentieth
century. Nonetheless the diachronic program of
historicity outlined in the chronicles has made
a tremendous impact upon the archaeological
interpretations until the mid twentieth century.
An attempt is made here to make a fuzzy
categorization of the ontology for the scholarly
attempts at the formulation of the cultural
chronology of the country.
Rubric of historical chronicles
Most if not all of the ancient chronicles of
Sri Lanka have made attempts to disseminate
an uninterrupted existence of dynastic history
and the history of Buddhist monastic (Law
1947; Bechert 1979). Such sources embrace the
events and individuals relevant to its objectives.
The study of ancient literary chronicles entered
the eld of chronology by the formulation of
dynastic history (e.g.Wickramasinghe 1912;
Codrington 1926; Mendis 1967). The lines of
succession of individual rulers have already
been described in the texts and the absolute
point of calculating the relevant periods was
centred on the event of the Great demise of
Gautama Buddha. Geiger says:
....... Taking as a basis the date 483 BC, we can
provisionallY draw up a list of the kings according to (sic.)
Dipavamsa and (sic.) Mahavamsa (Geiger 1912, xxxvi).
3
A continuous ow of textual narrations
provides an insight into the progression of
time. Historical event embedded therein
appear as time punctuations. They do not carry
adequate chronological resolution, which is
required to explain the long-term processes of
cultural development and change. Especially
the calendar dates which mark the oscillations
of technology and behaviour of the past are
implicit in the punctuated time episodes.
Paleographic analogy
Dating based on the palaeographic comparison
of letters of the ancient inscriptions was
common in the archaeology of the late
nineteenth century. It was feasible for two
reasons i.e. (a) abundance of ancient stone
inscriptions in and around the majority of the
ruined sites ( Muller 1883) and ‘(b) availability of
an absolute time marker assigned (c 250 BCE)
to the Brahmi script after it was deciphered
by James Prinsep (vide Dani 1963). Graphical
forms of individual letters appearing in such
inscriptions have been compared with an
evolutionary perspective. Identication of the
names of kings found in the text of those records
was taken as the rst criterion to provide a date
to the script. Paranavitana’s notion of Brahmi
and later Brahmi (paranavitana 1970; 1983)
marks a scheme of rather broad ‘periods’, but
within such, identication of ‘phases’ poses a
difculty due to the inconsistency of individual
letter forms. The same difculty is common
for the other periodizations formulated on
the basis of palaeographic comparison. The
major theoretical drawback of this approach
is the negligence of the local traditions of
palaeography. The evolutionary scheme of
the Sri Lanka script compiled by Fernando
(1946) and Paranavitana (1970) is exceptional
in the sense of a general evolutionary scheme
of palaeography, although its chronological
resolution is inadequate to reect the hazy
boundaries of the techno-cultural transitions
from a chronological point of view.
Stylistic parallelism
In the case of the absence of a literary
reference including the inscriptions, the
only possible direction to turn to in order to
propose dates was stylistic comparison. Early
pioneering works of comparative studies on
architectural styles were carried out by E.R.
Ayrton (1912-13) and A.M. Hocart during the
1920s and 30s. Several broad chronological
divisions have been proposed to describe
the development of art and architectural
traditions of the country. By the end of 1980s,
the formulation of a phasing scheme for
architectural development was conrmed. This
scheme describes at least three phases i.e. (1).
Period I (543 BCE-800 CE) (2). Period II (800-
1200 CE) and (3).1200-1500 CE). This scheme
outlines a rigorous scheme that covers 90% of
the entire historic period (Wijesekara 1990).
For a periodization of historic paintings, see
Bandaranayake 1986. The tradition of stylistic
comparison was not isolated. The contribution
of several pioneering authorities on art history
and philology in the early twentieth century
was immense to bolster them. Two notable
examples are Coomaraswamy’s synthesizing
studies of ancient art and architecture of Sri
Lanka in 1920s and Paranavitana’s (vide 19
37;1938;1941;1944;1945;1946;1947;1953)
philological interpretations related to historical
art and architecture.
Tripartite scheme
The emergence of a classication of the
country’s past into three broad cultural phases
as: (a) Pre history; (b) Proto history; and (c)
History, could be considered an intellectual
leap. It took nearly a half century to gain
ground rmly as a tripartite scheme. It is a
broad descriptive classication of the historical
process, but the longue dure’e and conjunctures
it manifests are far better than the reexive
scheme proposed by the literary chronicles
and the oating time brackets derived from
comparative studies of styles. The emergence
of the fundamental theoretical purview of the
tripartite scheme was parallel to the beginning
of the eld surveys conducted in favour of
physical anthropology in Sri Lanka.
The late nineteenth century surveys on the
prehistoric existence of human beings in the
country were pioneered by the scholarship of
4
the west. The beginnings of which were marked
by the eld surveys carried out by E.E. Green
(e.g. Sarasin 1926:81) and Pole (1913) around
the year 1885. Prehistoric stone implements
were collected from the wet lowland areas.
True identication of the prehistoric existence
in this country resulted from the eldwork of
Sarasin and Sarasins (1908). The theoretical
approach of their work was coupled with the still
existing Vadda population in the intermediate
dry uplands. They assumed that the Vadda
population constituted the biological and
cultural descendants of prehistoric man. Stone
artefacts recovered from cave excavation were
taken as the relics of the progenitors of the
existing aboriginal community and therefore
were termed as ‘Vadda facies’. Those artefacts
were compared with the late Paleolithic
Magdalenian of Europe (Deraniyagala 1992:4).
This could be seen as a synchronization of
a pragmatic intellectual formulation with
the mythopoeic story of the origin of the
Vadda population which has been narrated
in the Mahavamsa. Parker’s (1909) attempt to
identify the predecessors of the Vaddas with
Yakshas described in the Dipavamasa and the
Mahavamsa shows how the ideology of literary
chronicles affects even the empirical ndings
of the history of the country. However this
synchronization has uncovered out the upper
limits of the cultural boundary of the country
to an endless arena of archaeological research
while rmly establishing the Stone Age
existence in Sri Lanka.
Prehistoric existence of human beings in Sri
Lanka was further afrmed after the recovery
of human skeletons of nine individuals with
stone implements from Bellanbadipallassa
in 1956 by P.E.P. Deraniyagala (Deraniyagala
1958:223). Three radio metric assays (ibid;
1960:97) obtained on the remains show the
oldest survival of such a prehistoric community
at the site which occurred around 10009 BP.
Proto historic period, the second phase of
the tripartite scheme describes the stage that
was in between prehistoric and the historic
periods. This was the period that promulgated
sedentism, based on agro-pastoral dynamism
and the use of iron. It carries three different
characteristics namely, (i) its sole appearance as
a separate techno-cultural sphere (ii)’ its vibrant
manifestation as a transitory mechanism from
prehistoric to the historic period, and (iii) its
being the twilight zone as it were between itself
and the historic period.
Prevalence of an iron using proto historic
culture in Sri Lanka was rst inferred by the
Sarasins brothers (1907). They assumed that
the prehistoric communities would have been
transformed into the technologically advanced
stage after their familiarization with the use of
iron. They stated:
..... the Veddas having made the step directfy from the Older
Stone Age into the modern Iron Age which was brought to
them by (sic.) Sinhalese or perhaps another people of the
Indian sub-continent (1907:190).
Until the end of the 1970s, the idea of proto
history was oated within a vast time span
which delineated its lower limit around the third
century BCE that is the period when the rst
intelligibly decipherable inscriptions emerged.
In the meantime, the excavation at the Gedi Ge
area in Anuradhapura by S. Deraniyagala in 1969
(1972:48) has made a far reaching contribution
to formalize the chronological aspect of this
period. Radiometric assays assigned to certain
contexts of the stratigraphy of that excavation
go back to the period between 800 and 500
BCE. Associated material assemblage has been
identied as a true manifestation of the proto
historic cultural characteristics. This included
a series of individual dates that correspond to
the early half of the rst millennium BCE (e.g.
Anuradhapura Gedi Ge, context 17 [768-404
BCE], context 26 [770 BCE], Anuradhapura
Dingiri Bandage Watte, context 91 [774
BCE], context 99 [760 BCE], Anuradhapura
Mahapali, context 67 [910-790 BCE], context
75 [807-763 BCE], context 85 [932-843 BCE]
(Deraniyagala 1992:715-723].
Meanwhile, Bandaranayake (1979) has
formulated a broad descriptive periodization
for the entire spectrum of cultural development
in the country. It resembles inherited techno-
cultural characteristics of six major ‘periods’ of
5
development within too vague time brackets.
It was at the end of the 1990s, that the idea of
proto history of the country was almost well
grounded in the general cultural development
scheme in Sri Lanka and subsequently merged
with the pre vijayan period. In the 1950s,
the emerging evidence of megalithic culture
through the ndings of several burial grounds
became one of the major focuses of proto
history. None of such burial grounds was
dated archaeologically until the late 1990s. A
hypothetical date that ranges from 300 BCE to
200 CE has been proposed for those burials
by several authorities (paranavitana 1956;
Indrapala 1969; Silva 1970; and Begley 1981);
Senevirathne has suggested a period of 700-
600 for the megalithic tradition in Sri Lanka
(Senevirathne 1984:237; 287).
The most protable achievement in terms of
xing the chronology of the proto historic
period was the identication of the phase of
its transition with the historic period. This was
designated as Basal Early historic and dated to
600-500 BCE (Deraniyagala 1992: 711) which
was preceded by the period which carries true
historical characteristics i.e. earthenware shreds
bearing Brahmi letters, shreds of Northern
Black Polished ware and the occurrence of
pottery of Hellenistic derivation.
Further resolution of chronology
What was still unforeseen is the evidence of
the transition from Pre history to the Proto
history. Deraniyagala states:
..... The supersession of stone tool technology with that of
iron appears to have been a rapid process, thereby leaving
few discernible vestiges of this transition in the archaeological
record (1992:709)
Deraniyagala’s term ‘few discernible vestiges’
stands to describe several important discoveries
which remained neglected for decades. For
instance, in mid 1950s P.E.P. Deraniyagala
introduced a new phenomenon which he
termed as the ‘Udupiyan culture phase’. The
characteristics of this culture were “ t h e
rst appearance of pitted pebble hammer
stones in association with pottery that had been
originally hand made and sun baked, later wheel
made, red and painted” JRASCB (NS) 1956
V:13). This assemblage of Udupiyan culture
was unearthed from a natural cave known as
Udupiyan Galge situated near Tanjan-tenne in
the Kaltota escarpment. S. Deraniyagala has
reported a few prehistoric artefacts from this
cave (Deraniyagala 1992:308) which suggests
that it was a habitation of a group of people
who bore the techno-cultural characteristics of
both hunters and gatherers (stone implements
and pitted hammers) and incipient foragers
(grind stones and sun baked pottery). The
evidence pertaining to the Udupiyan Galge is
scanty for build up of a hypothesis upon the
pre and proto historic transition of that area
but they are seemingly representational of a
mid way in a possible technological transition.
Some of the archaeological evidence unearthed
after 2006 is rather promising in nding a
solution to this problem. Notable examples are
the results derived from the Galpaya survey.
A large earthen mound called Valamkatuyaya
of Galpaya is situated on the right bank of
Kuda Oya, one of the feeding channels of
river Walave. A preliminary surface survey
carried out on the mound has yielded a set
of artefacts (Somadeva et. al 2007) that could
be considered as an extension of what P.E.P
Deraniyagala has found from the Udupiyan
Galge. Both sites are situated about 10-15 kms
apart. The artefact assemblage recovered from
the former comprised nely touched quartz
and cherty implements together with grind
stones, and pestles and pottery (Black and Red
ware & crude plain Red Ware). Occurrence of
artefacts in Valamkatuyaya is open to doubt
murky and therefore problematical for two
reasons. First, the assemblage is a surface
collection. The second is, the site had been
destructively robbed intermittently for nearly
ten years. Both these have caused irreversible
de-contextualization of the artefacts at the site.
Excavations carried out in the year 2007
in an ancient cemetery identied at the
Government school premises in the village of
Ranchamadama, situated about 10km southwest
of the Valamkatuyaya mound have revealed
6
another set of evidence which strengthened
the idea of pre and proto historic transition. Six
weeks of excavations resulted in an unearthing
of six clay canoe burials and two pit burials
together with a rich assemblage of artefacts
including more than 100 individual specimens
of microlithic implements (quartz and cherty),
earthenware pots (in fragments) interned with
human corporeal remains. Ranchamadama
artefacts are reminiscent of artefacts recovered
in two previous occasions from Udupiyan
Gal Ge and the Valamkatuyaya mound. Three
radiometric assays have been obtained for the
burial canoes of Ranchamadama and among
them the earliest dates back to the 1350 BCE
(lab number S-3652, BS-282, sample number,
RB/2007/1). This is the rst time that we were
able to assign such a remote date to a culture
based on an organized burial custom which
was acquainted with pottery technology and
the practice of cremating the dead that has
come to our ken.
The excavation of 2009 carried out at a site
called Uda Ranchamadama situated 3 kms
south west of Ranchamadama cemetery has
yielded a rubble foundation of a ruined house
with a set of diverse artefacts some of which
carry characteristics similar to the artefacts
recovered from the cemetery. Especially the
association between stone implements, pottery
and iron objects is clearly discernible at da
Ranchamadama. Three wood charcoal samples
obtained from the excavation have been sent
for dating and the results are expected in March
2010.
The presence of grind stones and prehistoric
stone implements together with nine human
skeletons was also reported from a site called
Bellanbandipallassa (Deraniyagala 1956) situated
about nine kms north east of Valamkatuyaya
and c.19 kms from Ranchamadama. A date
obtained on the site goes back to 6500± 700
BP (a ‘thermo luminescence date, Wintle and
Oakley 1972; 6828-3895 cal BCE with 99%
probability according to Reimer et al 2004)).
This date together with the associated artefacts
is also suggestive of an occurrence of a
possible cultural leap from the period of hunter
gatherers towards a plant based foraging life
style circa mid second millennium BCE (For
discussion see, Somadeva et al 2008:7-14). This
idea is still a hypothesis and awaits substantial
evidence for afrmation in the future.
Summary
Major evolutionary dynamism of the
development of the cultural chronology in
Sri Lanka could perhaps fall into three broad
categories. The rst category is exemplied by
the arrangement of events into a diachronic
scheme as they are narrated in the historical texts.
Another attempt which could be considered
as an extension of the former presents a
conceptual partitioning of the cultural past
into several historical periods, based on geo-
political transformations. The chronological
formulations come under the second category
on an analogical reasoning. Comparison of the
stylistic characteristics had made a tremendous
impact on it. The third shows a pragmatic
and empirical archaeological discourse while
physical anthropology had played a crucial
role. Emergence of the tripartite scheme was
one of the results of this intellectual discourse.
The tripartite system still remains as the only
model of understanding the cultural past of the
country. Some of the innovative archaeological
discoveries have enabled the alteration of
this scheme (e.g. Deraniyagala 1992:707;
Deraniyagala & Abeyratne 1997; Deraniyagala
& Abeyratne 2000; Somadeva 2008) while
forming a theoretical walking ladder in the eld
of calibrating the past in Sri Lanka.
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