Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology
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Item Late Pleistocene humans in Sri Lanka used plant resources: A phytolith record from Fahien rock shelter(Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 2018) Premathilake, R.; Hunt, C.O.Little is known of the human use of rainforest plant resources of prehistoric Sri Lanka due to the lack of preservation of organic material and the effects of various destructive taphonomic processes. Phytoliths recovered from a AMS radiocarbon and OSL dated sequence at Fahien Rock Shelter indicate interactions of anatomically modern humans with the lowland rainforests of south-western Sri Lanka from 44,952–47,854 cal. BP to 11,991–12,402 cal. BP. During this period, the Rock Shelter occupants extracted their livelihood from a number of wild plants including bananas, rice, breadfruits, durians, canarium and species of palm and bamboo. These taxa are associated with present-day disturbed lowland rainforests. Gathering and processing of plant resources by existing modern rainforest foragers cannot directly be compared with the subsistence activities of the Late Pleistocene Rock Shelter occupants.Item Earliest Musa banana from the late Quaternary sequence at Fahien Rock Shelter in Sri Lanka(JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE, 2018) Premathilake, R.; Hunt, C.O.The domestication and time of arrival of bananas in South Asia and Africa are unresolved issues. We provide banana seed and leaf phytolith evidence from the archaeological sequence at Fahien Rock Shelter, south-west Sri Lanka, to help understand the geographical con®guration of hybridization, dispersal, cultural association and chronology of banana domestication. Phytolith evidence indicates that Musa accuminata subspecies and M. balbisiana existed in the south-western lowland rainforest of Sri Lanka from 44952±47854 to 3845±3985 cal a BP. Rock Shelter occupants exploited those taxa for starchy food. Edible diploid bananas may have been introduced from Indonesia or Papua New Guinea before 5994±6194 cal a BP. From this time onwards, phytoliths morphologically identical to those from triploid banana cultivars appeared in the lowland rainforest of Sri Lanka. This precocity appears unique to Sri Lanka. Dispersal of these triploids to the east coast of Africa may have followed maritime trade networks in the Indian Ocean from the ®rst half of the sixth millennium BP. Northward dispersal, e.g. to urban Harappan sites, occurred in the middle of the ®fth millennium BP. This discovery shows the interconnection of prehistoric cultures and their engagement with the management of starchy staples in the lowland rainforests of Sri Lanka. Copyright # 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Item Sri Lanka’s Earliest Wild Musa Bananas?(Global Journal of Archaeological & Anthropology, 2018) Premathilake, R.; Hunt, C.O.In spite of their importance as a crop today, records of the use of wild banana and the antecedents of the modern domesticated bananas are relatively obscure. Banana dispersal pattern from their native range (e.g. Island South East Asia and New Guinea) is also poorly known. Excavation at Fahien Rockshelter in South Western Sri Lanka yielded phytolith sequence dating from 48,354 to 3900 cal BP. Phytolith evidence suggests that Rockshelter occupants used wild banana (Musa. acuminata and M. balbisiana) through the late Pleistocene to early Holocene, i.e. 8000 cal BP. After this age, occupants significantly decreased the use of wild bananas.