Archaeological culture · from before 34,000 BP to the Iron Age (c. 900 BCE); shown from 10,000 BCE

Balangoda culture (Mesolithic Sri Lanka)

The hunter-gatherers of Sri Lanka, named after Balangoda, where their remains were first found. They lived in caves such as Fa Hien and Batadomba lena and in open camps, made tiny geometric stone tools (microliths) far earlier than most of the world, hunted and gathered in the forests and may have kept dogs.

Their way of life lasted until farming and iron reached the island in the early first millennium BCE.

See Balangoda culture (Mesolithic Sri Lanka) on the map in 10,000 BCE →

On the map

10,000–900 BCE