27 Chapter 1 Chapter the peopling of Sri Lanka from prehistoric to historic times: Biological and archaeological evidence Samanti Kulatilake INTRODUCTION Sri Lanka’s history of colonization goes back 40,000 years. Its climate, topography, and rich biotic environment are well known to be highly conducive to human settlement and population expansion. This large island (with an area of over 65,000 sq. km) is located in the Bay of Bengal, southeast of peninsular India, between 5°55′ and 9°51′ N (see Map 7). Sri Lanka’s climate is influenced by the island’s latitudinal ___location and internal topography. Its position on the Indian Plate means that tectonic activity has strongly affected the topography of this island nation for the past 45 million years, since India slammed into the Asian Plate. The island’s surface is composed of 2‐billion‐year‐old, pre‐Cambrian granulite facies, overlain by Late Pleistocene soils, Miocene limestone, and small tracts of Jurassic sediments. The Precambrian layers, in particular, have undergone extensive faulting and subsequent erosion. This has led to the creation of three main topographical regions—the central highlands (2500 m above sea level), plains (>200 m above sea level), and the low elevation (>30 m above sea level) coastal belt—each of which has its own micro‐climate. Regional variations in the temperature of Sri Lanka are primarily due to altitudinal differences, with some effect from rainfall patterns and ocean breezes. In general, higher temperatures are recorded in the coastal lowlands and lower temperatures in the central hill country. Accordingly, mean annual temperatures range from 16°C to 27°C. Seasonality is limited but the cooler months tend to be December and January. The most dramatic climatic feature is the monsoon rainfall. The island receives rain from both the southwestern A Companion to South Asia in the Past, First Edition. Edited by Gwen Robbins Schug and Subhash R. Walimbe. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 0002649157.indd 426 2/17/2016 12:27:02 PM THE PEOPLING OF SRI LANKA FROM PREHISTORIC TO HISTORIC TIMES 427 monsoon, which originates in the Indian Ocean, and the northeastern monsoon, which originates in the Bay of Bengal. The island also gets convectional showers all year round. The rainfall differentially waters the windward and leeward zones and the island is therefore divided into a wet and a dry zone. Mean annual rainfall ranges from approximately 700 mm in the dry southeastern and northwestern parts to over 5000 mm on the southwestern slopes of the central highlands. Rivers that originate in the central highlands follow a radial pattern, flowing through the plains and coastal belts and discharging into the Indian Ocean, provide water to the island’s lower elevations. The moisture content received by the different regions governs the natural vegetation of the island, which has a wide variety of eco‐zones—tropical rainforest, montane cloud forests, submontane forests, dry mixed evergreen forest, tropical moist evergreen forest, tropical thorn forests, coastal mangroves, and arid thorny shrub zones. Sri Lanka is one of the world’s hotspots of biodiversity, well known for its diverse plant life, with thousands of native species and genera, including a few dipterocarps found nowhere else in the world. Sri Lanka is an “endemic bird area” and its cloud forests and rainforests are home to more than 20 species of indigenous birds. The number of endemic species of mammals is lower but, still, 95 species of terrestrial mammals (21 native) live in Sri Lanka—bats, bears, buffalo, deer, elephants, flying foxes, jackals, langurs, lorises, macaques, mongoose, pangolins, insectivorous rodents, and wild cats—and there are 30 species of marine mammals in the surrounding seas. Sri Lanka is centrally located in the inferred “southern route” taken by anatomically modern humans as they were migrating out of Africa, on their way to occupying regions of island Southeast Asia and Australia (Ghirotto et al., 2011; James and Petraglia, 2005; Kourampas et al., 2008; Lahr and Foley, 1994; Mellars, 2006; Stringer, 2000). The island is separated from peninsular South Asia by a narrow sea strip named the Palk Strait. During times of lowered sea level, Sri Lanka was periodically connected to the Indian subcontinent by a land bridge. This has occurred 17 times since the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene. Geological evidence indicates that this connection was present during marine isotope stage (MIS) 5, the last interglacial (130 to 80 thousand years ago), and this is supported by evidence for a faunal exchange with India (Kennedy, 2013). Paleolithic fauna that entered Sri Lanka from India at that time included elephids, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, bovids, cervids, suids, cercopithecids, and prosimian primates (Kennedy, 2013: 37). However, human and faunal migrations would have been possible even when the landmasses were separated, through “island hopping” or using the series of raised shelves and islands north and northeast of Sri Lanka as stepping‐stones. Sea levels were also lower during the mid‐ Holocene interglacial, c. 7000 years ago, which is thought to be the last time this land bridge was passable (S.U. Deraniyagala, 1992; Kennedy, 2000). It is clear that the biocultural landscape of Sri Lanka is the result of successive waves of immigrants, whose interactions with the original inhabitants of the island have contributed to the heterogeneity in the cultural and biological makeup among its people today. Evidence for the earliest human occupation of the island can be traced to approximately 40,000 years ago, when hunting‐gathering‐fishing “Mesolithic” peoples occupied inland caves and open‐air sites of the dry zone (S.U. Deraniyagala, 1992; Kennedy and S.U. Deraniyagala, 1989; Perera, 2010; Perera et al., 2011; Wijeyapala, 1997). Subsequently, from 5000 to 900 BCE, there is very little archaeological evidence for human settlement, that is, until the Iron Age brought settled life, rice cultivation, cattle, and horse domestication. Throughout historic times, Sri Lanka’s strategic geographic ___location has attracted explorers, traders, and European colonists. Now, at the beginning of the twenty‐first century, Sri Lanka is home to more than 20 million people, who encompass a wide range of cultural, linguistic, and biological diversity. 0002649157.indd 427 2/17/2016 12:27:02 PM 428 SAMANTI KULATILAKE There has been considerable population movement and contact between Sri Lanka and adjacent regions, where patterns of migration and gene flow have contributed to heterogeneity. Genetic, morphological, and linguistic diversity among Sri Lankans today can be attributed only in part to multiple dispersals to the island from prehistoric through historic times. Variation also arises from culture contact over time, as biological and cultural features were introduced, shared, superimposed, and lost. Many processes and historical accidents have played a role in creating the multilayered biocultural landscape of Sri Lanka today. It resembles a palimpsest and, thus, straightforward historical interpretations are ill‐advised, if not impossible. This chapter provides a brief overview of the archaeological, fossil, and skeletal evidence for modern human occupation of Sri Lanka from the Late Pleistocene onward. South Asian archaeological convention divides this time frame into periods: Middle Paleolithic, Mesolithic, protohistoric Iron Age, Early Historic, Middle, and Late Historic. The Neolithic phase is conspicuously absent because of a lack of archaeological evidence for it in Sri Lanka. I also include in this chapter some observations on cultural, morphological, and genetic patterns in the contemporary population of Sri Lanka and their usefulness for understanding Sri Lanka’s biocultural heritage. TRACING ORIGINS: ARCHAEOLOGICAL, SKELETAL, EVIDENCE FOR THE PEOPLING OF SRI LANKA AND HISTORICAL The first hominins may have arrived in Sri Lanka between 125,000 and 75,000 years ago, a date that is relatively late in time compared to the appearance of early modern humans in other regions of the Old World, including peninsular South Asia (Lahr and Foley, 1994). However, this time period does roughly coincide with climate changes toward increasingly arid conditions and the availability of a land bridge in the Palk Strait. The earliest evidence of hominin occupation in Sri Lanka is found in small stone tools made of quartz and chert, a Middle Paleolithic flake industry, from the southeastern coastal region of Bundala (S.U. Deraniyagala, 1992). Although no skeletal remains have been recovered so far, the presence of Middle Paleolithic stone tools suggests that either archaic humans (e.g., Homo heidelbergensis) or anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) occupied Sri Lanka c. 100,000 years ago. Modern human skeletal remains from the terminal Pleistocene are relatively sparse in South Asia and, often, fragmentary when they are available. However, archaeological and some skeletal evidence indicates that early anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) arrived in the island’s rainforests and grasslands during the Late Pleistocene, as early as c. 40,000 years ago (Perera, 2010; Perera et al., 2011). Many of these early prehistoric sites are located in caves and rock shelters of the central and southwestern parts of the island. Three important rock shelter sites—Fa Hien‐lena (FHL), Batadomba‐lena (BDL) and Beli‐ lena Kitulgala (BLK)—have been dated between c. 40,000 and 8000 years ago (S.U. Deraniyagala, 1992). The earliest human skeletal evidence from this region comes from FHL in western Sri Lanka (Kennedy and S.U. Deraniyagala, 1989; Kennedy and Zahorsky, 1997). The bones, found in association with nongeometric microliths, are dated to 37,000 years ago (Perera, 2010). BDL and BLK are also cave sites in Sri Lanka where skeletal remains of modern humans have been discovered. The occupants of these cave sites manufactured geometric microliths, an industry that appears very similar to that of the mid‐Holocene Mesolithic, geometric, microlithic industry found at stratified sites on the Ganges Plain of northern India. 0002649157.indd 428 2/17/2016 12:27:02 PM THE PEOPLING OF SRI LANKA FROM PREHISTORIC TO HISTORIC TIMES 429 These early Mesolithic hunter‐gatherers of the island are popularly referred to as the “Balangoda people.” Their skeletal remains, dated between 28,000 and 7000 years ago (S.U. Deraniyagala, 1992; Kennedy et al., 1986; Kennedy and Zahorsky, 1997; Perera, 2010), are found in primary and secondary burials (S.U. Deraniyagala, 1992; Kennedy, 2000; Perera, 2010). The practice of intentional burial and the inclusion of articles of personal ornamentation in the burials are clear indicators of modern human behavior, and are very similar to the customs of the Ganges Plain people as well (Perera, 2010; Wijeyapala, 1997). The human skeletal remains from FHL represent a particularly remarkable burial sequence, spanning this entire period from the Late Pleistocene through to the middle to late Holocene (Perera, 2010). Most of these highly fragmentary skeletal remains belong to juveniles but there is one gracile, adult female skeleton (Kennedy, 2000). Morphometric analysis of approximately 38 skeletons and associated dentition recovered from the two other key wet zone cave sites, BDL and BLK, indicate a high degree of musculoskeletal robusticity (Kennedy, 2000; Kennedy et al., 1986). The extraction of ancient DNA has been attempted on two specimens: BDL‐1, which was dated to approximately 15,000 years ago and BLK‐2, which was dated to approximately 12,000 years ago (S.U. Deraniyagala, 1992). However, insufficient preservation is common in South Asian skeletal samples and authentic DNA was not successfully recovered. The researchers concluded that their results were consistent with a poor global pattern of DNA preservation in the tropics (Reed et al., 2003). With future technological advances, there may be opportunities for recovering ancient DNA from Sri Lankan prehistoric skeletal remains in order to discover their origins and affinities. An important prehistoric shell midden, which was once an open‐air habitation site, is located in the Balangoda area of the dry southeastern plains of Sri Lanka. This site, Bellan‐ bandi Palassa, has provided valuable insights on the biocultural adaptations of mid‐ Holocene peoples (P.E.P. Deraniyagala, 1958; S.U. Deraniyagala and Kennedy, 1972). This site has yielded the remains of at least 16 individuals (Kanthilatha et al., 2012; Kennedy, 2000). Based on morphometric traits, the Balangoda people of Bellan‐bandi Palassa are not significantly different from the present‐day Veddas, an indigenous people of the island (P.E.P. Deraniyagala, 1958; Kennedy et al., 1986). The people from Bellan‐bandi Palassa and the Vedda, however, do differ significantly from the other contemporary ethnic groups in Sri Lanka (Kennedy, 2000). This result is supported by another analysis of the dentition from three ethnic groups of Sri Lanka—the Sinhala, Tamils, and the Vedda (Hawkey, 2002). Hawkey reported that the Vedda share more similarities with the early hunter‐gatherers of the island than the Sinhalese or the Tamils. While it has been argued that agriculture may have developed in the central parts of the island around 13,000 years ago (Premathilake, 2006), clear evidence of an agricultural subsistence pattern emerges in Sri Lanka only after the immigration of protohistoric Iron Age people who share cultural and biological affinities with North Indians (Hawkey, 2002; Perera, 2010). Evidence of a Neolithic cultural phase in Sri Lanka is all but absent. It has been suggested that during an abrupt increase in aridity from 3400 to 1600 BCE (Premathilake, 2006), hunter‐gatherers and aquatic foragers living at sites such as Pallemalala, Mini‐athiliya, and Godawaya may have exploited the rich estuarine and coastal areas of Sri Lanka (Kulatilake et al., 2014). While the coastal region has been extensively surveyed over the last 150 years for prehistoric habitation sites (S.U. Deraniyagala, 1992), excavations have been limited. The shell midden sites of Pallemalala and Mini‐athiliya on the southeastern coast are dated to approximately 4000 years ago and excavations here yielded at least 13 human burials associated with stone implements, animal bones, and shell debris (Kulatilake, 2009; Kulatilake et al., 2014; R.M.S.L. Ranaweera, 2002; Somadeva and 0002649157.indd 429 2/17/2016 12:27:02 PM 430 SAMANTI KULATILAKE Ranasinghe, 2006). These are the kind of systematic investigations required to address the above hypothesis. This is particularly important because it is not clear which shell accumulations in the coastal areas of Sri Lanka are a result of human activity, since the natural process of intermittent lowering of the sea level during the Holocene (Katupotha, 1995) could also create midden‐like accumulations. The protohistoric Iron Age of South Asia is represented by a number of megalithic and habitation sites from the northeastern, southern, and central parts of India and Sri Lanka (Kennedy, 1975). The megalithic monuments mark secondary burial sites where fragmentary human remains are often discovered buried in urns and other vessels. The dental morphological traits of the people of Pomparippu (Kennedy, 2000; Lukacs, 1976) and Aligala rock shelter (Karunaratne and Adikari, 1994) indicate that a possible discontinuity existed between them and the hunter‐gatherer populations of the island. These Iron Age agriculturalists show greater morphological affinities to modern‐day Sinhalese than to the Tamil or the Vedda peoples (Hawkey, 2002). Sri Lanka’s protohistoric Iron Age is marked by the presence of Indian‐derived blackand-red ware dated to c. 900 BCE from the early habitation levels of Anuradhapura in north central Sri Lanka. Between 900 and 600 BCE, rice paddy cultivation, horses, and domesticated cattle also make an appearance in the archaeological record (S.U. Deraniyagala 1992). The human skeletons and the archaeological evidence, then, both suggest that these Iron Age Sri Lankans might have migrated from the northeastern Bay of Bengal region, bringing iron technology and a system of agriculture. The Early Historic period begins with the oldest‐known appearance of Brahmi writing, on pottery dated to 600 BCE from Anuradhapura (S.U. Deraniyagala, 1992; S.U. Deraniyagala and Abeyratne, 2000; Seneviratna, 1994). Human skeletal remains from this period are sparse. It may be that the quest for recovering skeletal remains has been overshadowed by the rewarding focus on studying historical texts, linguistics, and the rich archaeological heritage of the period. The roots of the Sinhala language spoken in Sri Lanka can be traced to Pali and Sanskrit, early Indo‐European languages of north India (Gair, 1982; Geiger, 1938). The archaeological record for this period also suggests the Early Historic period was a time when multiple migrations from northwestern and northeastern parts of the South Asian subcontinent brought Indo‐European language speakers to settle in Sri Lanka. Throughout the Early and Middle Historic period, urban centers like Anuradhapura, Mantai, Tissamaharama, and Kadurugoda (Kantarodai) flourished (Bandaranayake et al., 1990; Coningham and Allchin, 1995; S.U. Deraniyagala, 1992). The Early Historic Sri Lankans established a unique hydraulic system, including large reservoirs, dams, and canals. Toward the end of the Early Historic period, around 250 BCE, Buddhism was officially introduced to Sri Lanka through connections between the ruling elites of India and Sri Lanka. While the early Sinhala historical chronicles Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa offer a record from the perspective of the monarchs of the time, archaeological evidence in the form of stone scriptures, artifacts, and monuments corroborate strong connections between the north Indian kingdoms and the fledgling kingdoms of Sri Lanka. Influenced by Buddhism, large stupas and monasteries were sponsored and constructed by the rulers; many of them have survived the ravages of time and are testament to the historical links established between peninsular South Asia and island Sri Lanka. The collapse of the hydraulic civilization supporting large centers and satellite settlements in Sri Lanka marks the beginning of the Middle Historic period, from approximately 300 to 1200 CE. This period is documented in the Sinhala chronicle Culavamsa as well as in the archaeological record. Sri Lanka was ruled intermittently by the Chola dynasty of south 0002649157.indd 430 2/17/2016 12:27:02 PM THE PEOPLING OF SRI LANKA FROM PREHISTORIC TO HISTORIC TIMES 431 India, and South Indian influences are clearly present in the architecture and religious practices of that time. These cultural influences would have invariably been accompanied by gene flow between South Indians and the inhabitants of Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka’s Late Historic period (1200–1500 CE) a series of minor kingdoms were established on the island. Sri Lankan kings from the Early to Late Historic relied on South Indian armies to establish power. Historic records such as the Mahavamsa indicate that, on many occasions, Sinhala rulers procured royal consorts from north and south as well. The last rulers of the Kandyan kingdom were related to the Nayak dynasty of South India, and these affinities with South India underscore the genetic links that the elites of the island shared with South India. These political interconnections would have been a key source of admixture between Sri Lankans and South Indian groups. European colonists also interbred with Sri Lankan Sinhala and Tamils after the arrival of the Portuguese in 1505 CE, the Dutch in the 1700s, and the British who claimed authority over the entire island in 1815, ending the reign of Sri Lanka’s last king who ruled the Kandyan kingdom of the central hill country. THE MULTILAYERED BIOCULTURAL LANDSCAPE OF SRI LANKA Linguistic evidence about the peopling of Sri Lanka Understanding the historical, genetic, linguistic, and cultural affiliations of the people of Sri Lanka has been as difficult as interpreting the archaeological data on this question. Sinhala and Tamil speakers, who are adherents of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity, inhabit Sri Lanka today. Sinhalese oral histories about the peopling of Sri Lanka suggest that north Indian ruling castes migrated to Sri Lanka around the sixth century BCE and that was the origin of Sinhalese speakers in Sri Lanka today. Linguistic, genetic, archaeological, and cultural evidence does support a model whereby diverse people from different parts of mainland South Asia arrived in multiple migratory waves over millennia. Sixteen million Sri Lankans speak Sinhala, or Sinhalese, as a first language. It is an Indo‐European language (associated with the north Indian Prakrit branch) that evolved from the foundational Sinhala Prakrit (which was in use until the third century CE), to Proto‐Sinhala (until the seventh century CE), medieval Sinhala (twelfth century CE), and modern Sinhala (twelfth century CE to the present). Sinhala is geographically separate from its affiliate languages in northern India, being located in the southern half of the subcontinent, a region dominated by the Dravidian language family. This is the primary data cited in support of the hypothesis that immigration came primarily from the northern regions of India, whose people reached the island by sea. A Dravidian language, Tamil, is spoken by more than 3 million people in Sri Lanka and more than 60 million people in neighboring Tamil Nadu, India. There are two major Tamil communities in Sri Lanka, the recent “Indian Tamil” people, brought as indentured laborers to the island by the British during their colonial rule in the nineteenth century, and the “Sri Lankan Tamils,” who were here millennia before. The Muslim people of Sri Lanka comprise over 9% of the population. They speak either Tamil or Sinhala and their origin stories are complex. Some communities, the Sri Lankan Moors, trace their ancestry to descendants of Arab traders but, often, marriage to Muslim traders was preceded by conversion to Islam of the originally Sinhala or Tamil women of the island, who would have been adherents of Buddhism and Hinduism, respectively. A smaller number of Muslims are Malay people, who trace their origins to Southeast Asia. The Burgher people of Sri Lanka claim to be descendants of Sinhala and Tamil women who had children from encounters with Portuguese and Dutch sailors (and, to a lesser degree, with British people). The Burghers have adopted English today 0002649157.indd 431 2/17/2016 12:27:02 PM 432 SAMANTI KULATILAKE but, historically, they spoke a common form of Portuguese creole that was widely used and that facilitated trade in the circum‐Indian Ocean region. The Veddas of Sri Lanka are usually described as descendants of the original hunter‐ gatherer inhabitants of the island. Sinhala legends such as Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa document interactions between the early Sinhala settlers and the Vedda, identifying them as an ethnic group who practiced animism. Early ethnographic writing describes three categories of Vedda people based on whether they lived in forests, villages, or on the coast and on their level of acculturation to other ethnic groups of the island (Knox, 1681; Parker, 1909; Sarasin and Sarasin, 1893; Seligman and Seligman, 1911; Spittel, 1950), and their anthropometric and anthroposcopic traits (Hill, 1941; Stoudt, 1961). Today, traces of the language remain among people who self‐identify as Vedda but the majority of the language is lost; most Vedda people speak an Indo‐European creole that incorporates elements of Sinhala. Ethnolinguistic affiliations in Sri Lanka do not neatly coincide with religious affiliations. The Sri Lankan Moors and the Malays fit most precisely into the category of Muslims. However, the situation is usually more complicated. While the majority of Sinhalese are adherents of Buddhism, a considerable number of those living in the coastal regions of the island follow Roman Catholicism or other Christian faiths. The Tamils are primarily Hindus, but again some are also Roman Catholic or belong to other denominations of the Christian faith. However, both the Sinhala and Tamil people have followed, to some extent, a variation of the social stratification system known as the caste system as it is practiced in North and South India, respectively. In the past, caste would have exerted a significant influence on marriage patterns and social mobility for these groups. Other ethnic groups—the Muslims, Burghers, and Vedda—were not as affected by the caste system, but close contact with European colonists, Christian proselytization, and the religious conversion of previously Buddhist and Hindu people was a major factor for these groups. The Burghers today are almost exclusively Roman Catholic or Protestant Christian. Given the evidence of prehistoric and historic occupation of the island, historic records, evidence of circum‐Indian Ocean long‐distance trade links, and the present‐day bio‐ cultural landscape of the island, it is very clear that interbreeding between previously geographically isolated groups has been a consistent feature of Sri Lankan culture contact for millennia. Skeletal, dental, and genetic clues to the origins and affinities of Sri Lankans A recurring theme in the study of biological diversity among recent Sri Lankans is that cultural differences do not reflect biological differences. In legends, and in the anthropological literature on Sri Lanka, the Vedda maintained connections with Sri Lankan Indo‐ European and Dravidian speakers. In a study of cranial variation between several South Asian groups from India and Sri Lanka, it was found that South Indians, Sinhalese, and the Vedda were relatively similar in cranial size and shape (Kulatilake, 2000) but that contemporary Sinhala speakers shared cranial traits with the North Indian Indo‐European language speakers and with South Indian Dravidian language speakers (Kulatilake, 2000). Craniometric studies have also shown that the Vedda share affinities with Dynastic Egyptians (Howells 1995) and with West Asian people (Kulatilake, 2000; 2011; Warusawithana‐ Kulatilake, 1996). In a study of South Asian crania from several broad geographic regions of modern‐day India, Sinhalese and Vedda people were indistinguishable from one another; both groups also shared another characteristic—they were more phenotypically diverse than groups of people from continental India and the Himalayan region (Stock et al., 2007). 0002649157.indd 432 2/17/2016 12:27:03 PM THE PEOPLING OF SRI LANKA FROM PREHISTORIC TO HISTORIC TIMES 433 An analysis of dental nonmetric traits demonstrated no significant differences in the pattern found in the Vedda, Sinhala, and Tamil groups (Peiris et al., 2011). The Vedda’s dental nonmetric traits placed them in close affinity with western Eurasian populations (Peiris et al., 2011). The cumulative data presented here support the hypothesis that culture contact and interbreeding have resulted in cultural and biological homogenization between indigenes and later arrivals to Sri Lanka. The Vedda share cultural traits and genes with Sinhala and Tamil speakers, although the Vedda have been characterized in the ethnographic literature as a culturally distinct ethnic group. Origins are more difficult to decipher. The Vedda might be the descendants of any number of arrivals to Sri Lanka after 1000 BCE, groups with Eurasian affinities. On the other hand, the ancestors of the Vedda might have inhabited the region much earlier, as archaeological sequences of microliths appear early in Sri Lanka and the technology has affinities to the microlithic tools of North India. There is continuity in a small number of cranial and dental traits from Sri Lankan Mesolithic skeletal assemblages (Balangoda people) to the Vedda (Hawkey, 2002; Hawkey and Kennedy, 1993; Kennedy, 2000), which supports a more ancient antiquity of this lineage in Sri Lanka. Archaeological evidence too has revealed that the Mesolithic technological traditions survived to Early Historic times in some cave sites, which were occupied in the later stages by Vedda people (S.U. Deraniyagala, 1992). Analysis of gene frequencies and genetic distances has also provided valuable insights on the peopling of Sri Lanka, despite only a few genetic studies having so far been conducted to address the settlement history of the island. When the genetic data of several ethnic populations were compared, the Sinhalese were more closely related to the Sri Lankan Tamils than to the Moors, Malays, and Burghers (Papiha et al., 1996). These affinities suggest a common origin in a mainland South Asian population prior to their settlement of the island, in addition to regular intermarriage and gene flow between the Sinhala and Tamil peoples who coexisted for a long time in Sri Lanka. In a comparison of Sinhalese nuclear DNA with several other South Asian populations, the Sinhalese were shown to share close affinities with South Indians and Bengalis (Cavalli‐Sforza et al., 1994; Kshatriya, 1995; Saha, 1988). L. Ranaweera and colleagues (2014) compared the mitochondrial DNA of the Vedda, the up‐country Sinhala, low‐country Sinhala, Sri Lankan Tamil, and Indian Tamil groups of Sri Lanka. They concluded that the Vedda resembled an out‐group, with all other communities in Sri Lanka sharing closer affinities. This study also demonstrated that all five groups shared west Eurasian haplogroups and Indian‐specific mitochondrial DNA clades but, again, that the Vedda shared weaker links with the Indian populations. While the Vedda appeared to be more closely related to the Sinhala and Sri Lankan Tamil groups and more distantly related to the Indian Tamils, the study concluded that the Vedda’s genetic data were consistent with historically strong genetic drift (L. Ranaweera et al., 2014). CONCLUSION No simple conclusions can be drawn between the correlation of biology and ethnolinguistic affinities of regional populations compared, because influences such as language replacement, gene flow, and genetic drift complicate the picture. In addition, the environment exerts pressures whereby the frequencies of biological traits change over time and space as a result of natural selection. Sri Lanka is a case in point. The peoples of this island population are heterogeneous, and this heterogeneity is multilayered, akin to a palimpsest, where traits 0002649157.indd 433 2/17/2016 12:27:03 PM 434 SAMANTI KULATILAKE have been introduced by ancient migrants, superimposed with the traits of more recent arrivals, then erased or highlighted over time as the result of a combination of evolutionary, historical, and cultural processes and events. That being said, it is clear that peninsular and island South Asians maintained complex relationships for millennia, evidenced by archaeological and skeletal remains and genetic data. The ancestors of the Vedda people were among the first modern human colonizers of Sri Lanka, and there is some evidence for biological and cultural continuity through time in the indigenous Vedda people of Sri Lanka. Although they share biological affinities with the Sinhala and Tamil‐speaking people of Sri Lanka, they have undergone a process of genetic drift that has limited the genetic diversity in this population. The protohistoric Iron Age people share archaeological and biological affinities with North and South Indians, but large‐scale colonization of the island began c. 500 BCE, with people arriving in multiple waves from different geographic regions of mainland South Asia. The details of how symplesiomorphies, introgression, and genetic drift are expressed in the phenotype may not be resolved until more complete ancient skeletal samples are recovered and ancient and recent DNA analyses conducted. However, we are in a position to continue the inquiry into the peopling of Sri Lanka using multiple lines of evidence. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The work of Kenneth Kennedy has inspired and enriched my own. I wish to thank the editors, Subhash Walimbe and Gwen Robbins Schug, for the opportunity to contribute a chapter to this edited volume, conceived in honor of Kenneth Kennedy. I am grateful to Siran Deraniyagala, Nimal Perera, and numerous colleagues working in South Asia for their contributions which inform my understanding of the archaeology and biological anthropology of Sri Lankans. I thank Julie Cormack for her valuable comments on the manuscript. rEFERENCES Bandaranayake S, Mogren M, Epitawatte S, editors. 1990. 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