The Impact of Palaeo Climatic Changes in the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene on the Subsistence Patterns of the Early Humans in Sri Lanka

Abstract

There are many evidences recovered about the prehistoric man during the late Pleistocene period in Sri Lanka. That can be identified as the Mesolithic era of the human history. The modern Homo sapiens lived from about 50 000 ya to 6000 ya, subjected to specific climatic and temperature changes. Thus, according to the geological time scale, after shifting from the terminal Pleistocene to Holocene, there are evidences found on the extinction of the animals lived in Pleistocene. Aside from that, the sepeartion of the terrestrial land mass between India and Sri Lanka was also taken place 7000 ya. The desired time period of study for this research is from around 20 000 to 5000 ybp. Depending on the proxy that are been recognized up to date, there seems some turning points on the events like food patterns and domestication processes. The temperature variations, the location of habitats, floral and faunal reamains are mainly analysed to build up the conclusions. As a whole, it is clear that some features are gradually faded away with the progression of the early Stone Age. Preferentially, the changes in the floral and the faunal remains recovered at sites from different layers reflects the climatic changes and subsistent patterns that can be attributed to factors of nutrient intake, inter relationships and domestication of plants and animals. Further, these revolutionary conversions are expected to be supported straightly to the cognitive development of the human with future experiments.