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Seven Years in Sihagiri Bim An Account of a Sri Lankan-Swedish Collaboration in Settlement Archaeology in Sigiriya 1988—1995

Mats Mogren

During the course of seven years Sri Lankan and Swedish archaeologists in collaboration built up a core of what is today the Sri Lankan settlement archaeology. Through surveys, excavations and ethnoarchaeological studies an understanding was gradually obtained regarding settlements and subsistence strategies of the Sri Lankan dry zone, from the Mesolithic to the present, and a generation of young Sri Lankan archaeologists got a fair amount of necessary field training. The primary objective was to develop the human resources of Sri Lankan archaeology, but something can also be said about the research results of the project. This article gives a generalised background and, in very brief outline, an overview of the work done, its methodology, constraints and results.

Mats Mogren, Department ofArchaeology, Lund University, Sandgatan l, SE-22350 Lund, Sweden.

In 1984 Senake Bandaranayake, the renow- Archaeology (PGIAR) in Colombo as wor- ned Sri Lankan archaeologist, known in king partners. In 1987 I was asked by Damell Sweden for some of his writings (Banda- if I was interested in setting up a program ranayake 1977, 1985) and a long-time friend together with the Sri Lankans. He did not of our country, visited some of our archaeo- have to ask twice. logical institutes in an attempt to arouse A reconnaissance trip was undertaken by interest in a Sri Lankan-Swedish colla- me in February and March 1988, when the boration in archaeology. Nothing much came outline of the project was discussed, and out of it at the time, but at the Southampton during six consecutive field seasons 1988-93 WAC in 1986 he met with David Damell, then a large amount ofwork was carried out, which at the Swedish Central Board of National in the last years of the project was developed Antiquities, and plans started forming for a to publication standard (Bandaranayake & collaboration financed by SAREC (the Swe- Mogren, Eds. 1994). While SAREC granted dish Agency for Research Cooperation with the financing and the Central Board of Natio- Developing Countries —now part of SIDA, nal Antiquities provided an administrative the Swedish International Development Co- framework for the Swedes, the objectives and operation Agency), and with the Swedish implementation strategies were decided upon Central Board ofNational Antiquities and the by the PGIAR directorship in collaboration newly formed Postgraduate Institute of with the main Swedish consultants.

Current Swedish Archaeology, Voh 7, l999 108 Mttts Mt&g&en

ln retrospect this col laboration has meant doctoral dissertation at Harvard 7he Pre- a lot to both Swedes and Sri Lankans. The histo&v of Sri l.anka (Deraniyagala 1992). human resources have developed considerably The rural population of the ancient on both sides and a large number of enduring kingdoms was almost totally overlooked by friendships have been established. Spin-offs archaeologists, however. Nobody seemed are forming all the time, most recently in inclined to ask the relevant questions about Lund, where a permanent exchange and the economic base of the politico-religious collaboration agreement was signed in Sep- superstructure. The thousands of ancient tember 1997, which hopefully will form the irrigation reservoirs (tanks), which dot the basis of a new and still more profound phase countryside of dry zone Sri Lanka, were in Sri Lankan-Swedish archaeological con- studied through written records (Brohier tacts. 1934—1935) and attracted some interest from engineers and surveyors for their visible BACKGROUND features and from historians and other In 1988 Sri Lankan archaeology already had scholars for their sluice technology (e.g. a century-long history to look back upon. The Gunawardana 1978, 1989). Yet they were Archaeological Department, the Sri Lankan more or less taken for granted by archaeo- equivalent to our Central Board of National logists and human geographers, as were the Antiquities, was formed in 1890 during the settlement systems that were dependent on British colonial administration and with these water resources, when models of pre- H. C.P. Bell as its first Commissioner of modern society were put forth (cf. Perera Archaeology. 1978; Madduma Bandara 1985). There is no During this first century, focus was mainly total lack of interest in questions regarding on the manifest architecture of the royal settlement structure, but the approaches to the centres and major monasteries of the Early problem complex are mostly on a macro- and Middle Historic phases of Sri Lankan scale, where, for want of relevant data re- history, from about the 3"' century BC to the garding the societal base, the emphasis is on 13'" century AD. Good knowledge was ob- elite settlement hierarchies (e.g. Ismail 1995). tained about the politico-religious super- The only notable exception to the neglect structure of ancient Sri Lanka and its topo- of rural settlements, and the only true graphy. The ruins of the royal centres of settlement-archaeological work written before Anuradhapura, Polonnaruva and Sigiriya 1988 in Sri Lanka, is the dissertation Early were cleared from jungle growth and partly Settlements in Jaffna. An Archaeological restored. Early British efforts were continued Survey by the Tamil scholar Ponnampalam by the archaeologists of independent Sri Ragupathy (1987), who unfortunately was Lanka, at times in collaboration with collea- forced into exile by the ongoing civil war. gues from the major Western countries. In His book deals with quite another type of the process Sri Lankan tourism and Sinhala- landscape, though: the arid Jaffna peninsula Buddhist identity had been given magnificent where irrigation water is taken from wells. show-cases. Another important departure point for A second line of development, quanti- future research is the work done by Sudarshan tatively minor in relation to the monument Seneviratne on geological prerequisites for archaeology, but with an equally long history the macro-settlement distribution of the dry and also carried out at a qualitatively high zone (e.g. Seneviratne 1988). level, evolved in the field of Stone Age In 1988 Eva Myrdal-Runebjer made a research (Deraniyagala 1980).This develop- series of interviews that resulted in a small ment was crowned with S.U. Deraniyagala's book, which for us functioned as a "mapping

Cttrttnt Si~edish Archaeology, Vol. 7, &999 Se»en )ecccsicc Silcogiri Bien VO9 of the intellectual landscape" of Sri Lankan and with briefer periods of monastic occu- archaeology and related disciplines (Myrdal- pation also after that. Sigiriya is also partly Runebjer 1990). Thus we also got to know an urban site, earlier thought to measure 1070 several of the leading scholars of the country, x 1520 m within the outer ramparts, but which for us was a great asset and a pre- during the course of SARCP fieldwork found requisite for further efforts. to extend over a 1 x 3 km area, and to have had extensive "suburbs". It had a royal palace THE STUDY AREA —THE SIHAGIRI on the partly terraced, ca. 1.5 ha large, top BIM plateau of a 199 m high monadnock rock It was the intention of Senake Banda- rising steeply from the plain. This royal city ranayake, director of the PGIAR, to try and has the best-preserved example of an Asian change the situation with its emphasis on pleasure garden from the first millennium AD monument archaeology, and thus in 1988 the (Bandaranayake 1990, 1993a, b). It also SARCP (The Settlement Archaeology Re- comprises the citadel-like structure of Mapa- search and Collaboration Project) was for- gala ("the Vice-roy's rock") just south of the mulated. central complex, with its "cyclopean" stone The fieldwork area in the central parts of walls, for which many differing dating sug- the island, the plains around the 5'"-century gestions have been submitted throughout the royal centre of Sigiriya and the major monas- research history of Sigiriya. In addition to tery of Dambulla (fig. I), both designated as World Heritage Sites, was chosen for several reasons. The first and most important reason was that the UNESCO/CCF-funded Cultural Triangle project at Sigiriya could provide the necessary infrastructure in the form of lod- gings and work space. The project had been running since 1982, and Bandaranayake was the director of it as well as of a similar project at Dambulla (for a presentation ofthe Cultural Triangle, see Silva 1989). Officers of the Triangle project took part in the SARCP work from the start, and several students who got their field training through the SARCP obtained employment in the Triangle project, so there was a symbiotic relationship, even though the SARCP was kept apart from the Triangle administratively and research-wise. The second reason was that most of the societal superstructure sites of the area were well known and subjected to research ever since T.H. Blakesley surveyed the area in the 1870s and H. C.P. Bell started working at Sigiriya in 1894 (Blakesley 1876; Bell & Bell of'Sti Lan/. tt, i»itlt tlte &eseacch area 1993:83—101). Sigiriya itself is partly a Fig. L Map of the ptoject, tlte Sihagiti Bitn, rnarled in monastic complex with a long history span- ltatching. Tlte shaded at.ea at the centte of' the ning more than a millennium from the 3c4 island is the ltighland tegion. (Map b» Kenneth 10'" century BC until at least the century AD Bet tnan, LUHM, Land, te»ised b» Staffan HyB)

Cccrrent Sc»eclish. 4ccttaeotog», Vot. 7, l999 110 Mats Mogren these architectural remains, there are remains of a complex hydraulic system. The other pivot ofthe region, the monastic complex of Dambulla with its 73 rock shelter residences of which five large caves are still in use by the monastic community, has had an enormous importance for the region from its establishment in the 3'4 century BC to the present, religiously, economically and politi- cally (Bandaranayake 1993c). The research region delineated by the project coincided well with what in ancient times was known as Sihagiri Bim, the territory of Sigiri (fig. 2). It extends northwards from the foothills at the northern edge ofthe central highlands of the island, and is delimited on both the east and west sides by low ranges of mountains or hills. The plain in between, measuring ca. 16— 20 km east —west and ca. 40 km north —south, is relatively flat and studded with more than Fig. 2. The research area, roughly equivalent to 200 irrigation tanks, abandoned or restored. the ancient Sihagiri Bim, but deli neated by modern The number may seem high, but it is in fact administrative boundaries. The four main hydro- logical basins are indicated the rivers and their much lower than in the surrounding areas, by tributaries. A few of the major irrigation reser- the core regions of Anuradhapura and Polon- voirs in present-day use are marked in black. The naruva. abandoned ancient Sigiri Mahavava approxi- The study area divides into four major mately at the centre of the map is not filled in. hydrological basins: the Kiri Oya basin in the The main ancient feeder canal is marked to the east, which is the only one with natural water east ofit. The black dots are the major si tes of 1. in the dry season due to a limestone band Sigiriya and 2. Dambulla. The unfilled circles along the western edge of the basin; the Sigiri indicate the major archaeological sites and the Oya basin in the north; the Mirisgoni Oya principal excavation sites of the SARCP: 3. Manavava, 4. Nagalavava, 5. Talkote, 6. Piduran- basin in the centre and the Dambulu Oya gala, 7. Illukvava, 8. Enderagala, 9. Malasna, basin in the south-west. These basins form 10. Potana, 11. Ramakale, 12. Kosgaha-ala, 13. the the parts of upper catchments of some of Dehigaha-ala-kanda, 14. Vavala, 15. Kaludiya major rivers of the island. They also formed Pokuna, 16. Kudagona vava, 17. Nuvaragal- the basic analytical units of our survey. kanda, 18. Ibbankatuva, 19. Kiralessa. Scale in The archaeological knowledge of the km. (Map by the author) Sihagiri Bim, before our first season of work in the field, encompassed primarily a relati- vely good understanding of the monastic total extensions, and have also been subjected remains of the region. The sites of Sigiriya to archaeological research, most recently by and Dambulla had been subjected to research a Sri Lankan-German project working at for a long time. The large monastic complexes Pidurangala and Dambulla (Karg 1993; of Ramakale and Pidurangala belong to the Kilian k Weisshaar 1994; Schultz 1993). greater Sigiriya urban form. They were Also a minor site at Talkote in the close known archaeologically, though not in their vicinity of the Sigiriya urban complex was

Current Swedish Archaeology, Vol. 7, 1999 Seven Years in Sihagiri Bim 111 known, as well as the medium-size sites of present author. Enderagala, Kaludiya Pokuna, Kandalama If we set up some limitations as to what and Vavala some distance away. types of sites to investigate from a societal Apart from the strictly monastic sites, point of view, the temporal limitations were other locations known were the citadel-like nil; in order to understand the natural re- site of Nuwaragalkanda in the mountains of source utilisation of the region as well as the south-eastern end of our research area, possible, we saw the necessity of encom- and a probable "proto-urban" site at Malasna passing both the Prehistoric and the modern (both with considerable monastic remains as periods. Stone Age research and ethno- well). A small number of inscription sites archaeology became integrated parts of the were also known; the megalithic cemetery site total effort effectively from the 1989 season at Ibbankatuva had just been discovered, and onwards. at two sites terracotta figurines had been The need for irrigation studies was evident found, Illukvava and the recently discovered from the very first reconnoitring trip to the Manavava (Manatunga 1990b; Nandadeva study area, and was pursued by a team headed 1990: cf. Bandaranayake 1984:5, 8, 1990). by Eva Myrdal-Runebjer of Gothenburg University (also responsible for the ethno- PODI MINISSUNGE PURAVIDYAVA archaeology work) starting in 1989. During Our research strategy was clear from the very the course of the first two seasons however, outset: take the societal apex sites into an additional field of landscape utilisation consideration, but concentrate the field effort grew into paramount importance, namely iron on the societal base, the rural settlements production studies. The region was found to surrounding (and supporting) the monu- be studded with bloomery slag, and apart from mental sites. The concept ofpodi minissunge surveys for sites a larger excavation project puravidyava, "the archaeology of the small was started with Rose Solangaarachchi of the people", was adopted as a sort ofcatch-phrase PGIAR as the responsible Sri Lankan field of the project, and was imprinted through a director, with Svante Forenius, Uppsala, as translation into Sinhala of one of the project's main consultant, and with Gert Magnusson methodology texts (Mogren 1990). and Dag Noréus, both from Stockholm Uni- As indicated above, this was more or less versity, as special consultants. About the same untrodden territory. With one minor excep- time a parallel study of iron production tion, nobody had looked for such sites in the commenced in the southern part ofthe island, region prior to the outset of the project. The at Samanalawewa (Juleff 1996), but before exception was Anura Manatunga of the these two studies nothing much had been Archaeological Dept. at Kelaniya University, achieved archaeologically regarding iron the project's first field director, who had been production in Sri Lanka. In 1821 Dr John searching through parts of the area in the Davy, a British military physiologist and previous years, and who knew the region and anatomist, described smelting furnaces still many of its inhabitants. With his contacts as in use in Sri Lanka (1821, repr. 1983:195), a point of departure, the first field season and Ananda K. Coomaraswamy was able to (1988)was spent on surveying and the second record, in text and photographs, a still one (1989) on test excavations; not until the existing context of small-scale iron smelting third season in 1990 did we undertake larger as late as around the tum of the last century excavations. The 1988 fieldwalking was (Coomaraswamy 1908).Sir Richard Hadfield undertaken by a team of 12 students and had studied older written accounts and sum- Triangle officers headed by Anura Mana- marised various metallurgical analyses of tunga, Magnus Elfwendahl, Uppsala, and the ancient iron objects (Hadfield 1912), but

Current Swedish Archaeology, Voh 7, l999 I 12 M(((5 Mo&11'eti nothing at all was known about the ancient A "village inquiry unit" was formed, iron industry and its processes. The two new which gathered basic information on the projects have totally changed the archaeo- purana (old, traditional) villages of the area logical landscape of Sri Lanka in this respect. from the inhabitants. Also the labourers at Thus the SARCP rapidly became a very the Cultural Triangle Project at Sigiriya were multi-pronged effort. Such a research design a very valuable source of information, being has its obvious drawbacks; it is difficult to part-time peasants from the vicinity. Some of carry out really profound studies in any single them were temporarily employed as our field of research, but on the other hand, in labourers and functioned primarily as guides. many respects we were pioneers scraping the Thus, in short, our growing understanding surface of an archaeological treasure-trove of the area was to a great extent built on local which will suffice for several generations of knowledge. archaeologists to delve into. It was, after all, During the course of our flrst seasons at only a beginning and the project can be seen and around Sigiriya a number of previously as the setting up of a few direction signs. unknown minor monastic sites were found, Furthermore, the primary objective was to especially in the little known Kiri Oya basin. train young Sri Lankan colleagues in as broad The larger sites of Ramakale and Pidurangala a spectrum of settlement studies as possible, proved to be not so well known after all. The so in retrospect we feel that the project got full extent ofthe complexes became apparent an optimal structure considering the resources only after detailed surveying and mapping in available to us. very dense jungle. Each covered around 1 km", and the Ramakale complex was found THE SURVEYS to have about 120 stone-built structures When we arrived at the area in the first (Bandaranayake 1994:16ff). season, one objective was immediately appa- A survey for inscription-sites, which rent: get acquainted with the landscape itself developed into a qualitative field-epigraphy, in order to understand the logic of settlement was pursued by our 1989 fleld director Raj allocation. A total survey of the land was Somadeva. Many inscriptions were previously impossible for three main reasons: the some- known and even published, but Somadeva put times impenetrable scrub jungles that covered the whole corpus together and managed to vast areas, where eyesight could be reduced add a substantial number of previously un- to 2—3 metres; the ongoing JVP insurgency, known records, making estampages and with some activity also in our area unti1 1990; rereading the texts. The entire corpus flnally and a substantial number of more or less consisted of nearly 300 lithic records (Soma- aggressive wild elephants, that felt stressed deva 1994). His data can be used in many by the growing pressure on their habitat from ways; the spatial distribution of the sites, with settlers. Systematic sampling strategies have many relatively small sites in the early period been very popular for decades in the aftermath and just a few large ones in the Middle of the New Archaeology, but we who were Historical Period, may be interpreted to mirror involved in the Sihagiri Bim surveys did not a development of growing societal com- believe in the method as a means of under- plexity, and perhaps one can even see a vague standing the landscape; any given area must reflection of Sri Lankan state formation. The be visited and revisited in extenso and re- site distribution is in itself also a rough corded continuously to be fully understood. settlement pattern. Had we believed in the method, it would still Even after the main fieldwalking program have been unfeasible for the same reasons as was halted after the 1989 season, surveying mentioned above. for iron production sites continued through

C((rrent S(eedieh Areh((eotogv, Vot 7, l 999 Seven Year s in Sihagiri Bhn 113 the 1992 season, with quite impressive results but unknown to the archaeological com- (see below). munity (Manatunga 1990a). Our main quest was for village sites. We had no means of checking on the These were delimited archaeologically by the apparent modular pattern through test ex- occurrence of pottery, and one method of cavations and datings, due to the great looking for them was simply to ask the settlers number of sites found, so the pattern still in the area for valan katu, potsherds. These remains hypothetical. The surveys were done part-time swidden cultivators know their area in the pre-GPS era, so even the plotting is very well so this method immediately yielded sketchy, but the single sites are real ly of minor substantial results, and combined with our importance. The primary lesson taught is that own fieldwalking the results sufficed for of numbers, of possible settlement patterns several seasons of follow-up work, some of it which do not conform to the taken-for- still to be carried out. granted models, and certainly also of the In Sri Lankan historiography the concept enormous potential inherent in the rural of the dry zone village has been a fairly settlement archaeology of the region. In toto uncomplicated matter. According to the 195 sites were registered during the first four established canon, and in generalised terms, years of fieldwork, ofwhich all but a few were the nucleus of the village was the irrigation previously unknown. About hal fofthese were tank, the vava, around which village life regarded as settlement sites indicated by a revolved both temporally, in the yearly scatter of potsherds. Only a handful of the monsoon cycle, and spatially. The settlement, pottery sites were regarded as being urban in the gamgoda, which in early modern (Kan- character; the others belong to a sedentary dyan and colonial) times was clustered or agricultural context. nucleated, a gammandiya, was usually placed In 1989 the political unrest came even at one end of the tank bund. Connected to closer than the year before, so we decided not the village could be a small pansala, a to leave the immediate vicinity of Sigiriya and Buddhist temple. Below the tank were the its relative safety. This is the main reason why paddy fields for wet rice cultivation, and in large areas in the northern and southern the higher ground around the village was the outskirts of the research area remain un- jungle with the chena (bena) fields for surveyed. Instead we wanted to check on the swidden cultivation of millet, legumes and one-tank-one-village model on a minor scale, other rain-fed crops. A one-tank-one-village targeting the area belonging to a single system was taken for granted (cf. Perera village. We chose Talkote, adjacent to the 1978). Sigiriya archaeological complex on the north- Our potsherd search taught us already in western side, and the working area of this the first few weeks of the first season that special survey comprised ca. 8 km" (Mogren reality was far more complex than the model. 1994). In the eastern basin of the Kiri Oya, where Talkote had been a cluster village into the the major part ofthe 1988 surveying took part, 20'" century, and its gammandiya was clearly there were relatively few tanks but a large distinguishable. Into the 19'" century there number of pottery sites. Most of them were had been two villages, Ihala (Upper) Talkote clustered around the confluences of the and Pahala (Lower) Talkote (Lawrie 1898). smaller streams fed by the limestone band, There were a few stone pillars and a ruined and the Kiri Oya itself. In every second cluster stupa from a minor monastic complex, and or so was found a minor monastic site, almost there were a number of irrigation tanks. Two according to a modular pattern, the majority of them were in regular use, the Ihala vava of which were known to the local peasants, and the larger Pahala vava. Combined with

Current Swedish Archaeologv, Voh 7, /999 1 14 Mats Mogren the number of abandoned and intermittent context of the Pidurangala monastery. One is tanks of the village the total number amoun- a strictly Mesolithic camp-site (while other ted to seven, however, and when delving sites with lithic remains also have later strata deeper still into the problem, there was also with pottery and are designated as sedentary a complementary system of minor reservoirs settlement sites in this context). The re- called vav-kotu and amuna by the local maining 36 sites posed a number of important villagers, which were the concern of only 1- problems for the field team. Which of these 3 families (Myrdal-Runebjer 1994a:167). pottery sites were real sedentary settlements, The archaeological record of the village and which were just waste at the site of a field grew even more complex when, in addition hut? Which were contemporaneous? to the gammandiya, a large number ofpottery When studying the older topographical sites were found, some of which conformed literature, another source-critical problem to the gamgoda model, some of which did becomes apparent. The English sailor Robert not. (In fig. 3 sites SO 5,6 and 32 are good Knox, who was captured and detained by the examples of settlement sites in gamgoda Kandyan king for almost two decades, 1660— position, while sites like SO 3, 36, 37, 50 and 1679, indicated that there was a certain lack 55 diverge from the model. ) The archaeo- of settlement stability in the Kandyan king- logical record of this small village contains dom; the villages could be moved frequently 56 sites, of which 12 seem to belong to the for various reasons such as occurring illnesses contexts of urban Sigiriya and seven to the (Knox 1981:353;also quoted in Myrdal-

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80 84 Fig. 3. Site map ofthe Ialkote survey. Note the close proxi- 80 mity to the Sigiriya complex in the south-eastern corner gg Tank and the Pidurangala temple ~ R~ grounds (= area within Padtkt dashed scluare to the east). (Map by PGIAR Carto- Senlement Sita graphic Unit. Courtesy of PGIAR, Colombo. )

Current Swedish Archaeology, Vol. 7, l999 Seven Yearsin Sihagiri Bim 115

Runebjer 1994c:249).Hypothetically a cluster finds such as gun cartridges, a slate pencil of pottery sites could represent just one and modern pottery, but nothing thought to residential group and only a few generations. be considerably older than Lawrie's mention The oral history of Talkote was rather of Ihala Talkote. meagre; anything older than living memory The conclusion is that the gamgoda model was termed as "before three generations" or is not incorrect, but it is not the entire story from "ancient kings' times", very large trees either, and that the oral history ofTalkote has were always "300 years old" etc., but there some basis, that the shift from Pahala Talkote was one thing of which the inhabitants were to the present location was a gradual process certain: the village site before the estab- during the 19'" century. It does not explain lishment at the last gammandiya. It was all the other gamgoda sites at the other tanks, pointed out to us, situated in a gamgoda however, and it does not explain the number model position adjacent to the western end of monastic sites in the vicinity (there are of the Pahala vava bund (SO 6 in fig. 3), and eight of them, SO 9, 29, 30, 51, 53, 54, 62 the area was strewn with potsherds, some with and 64, excluding the present pansalvatta a fairly "modern" appearance, and there was cluster of ancient remains, SO 10, 25—27). even an old tamarind tree, indicative of a Three ofthese monastic sites are solitary stupa village centre. These facts, in combination ruins, SO 9, 53, 64. These sites can not be with annotations by Archibald Campbell connected with the royal presence at Sigiriya, Lawrie (1898), indicated that it had been at least not all of them. One of the stupas had abandoned sometime during the 19'" century. a brick with two letters ascribed to the 7'"—8'" centuries. THE EXCAVATIONS OF RURAL The Talkote research did not give the area SETTLEMENTS a history, but it resulted in an understanding The complexity of this area called for test of the complexity of settlement patterns in excavations, and a few probes were carried the Sri Lankan dry zone, and provides a word out during the 1989 and 1990 seasons. In of caution with regard to future work (Mogren Talkote a total number of 10 2 x 2 meter pits 1994). were dug in the very hard soil of the dry The Tammannagala test pits gave us quite season, using pick-axes as the main imple- another testimony. The large pottery site SO ment. Three pits were dug in the pansalvatta 5 in a model gamgoda position at one end of (SO 10 in fig. 3), the grounds of the small the Ihala vava bund, yielded enough ancient village temple where there were also ancient pottery to prompt a decision to start a larger monastic remains; two were dug in the excavation at the site. This was carried out m" gammandiya (SO 28); three in a large pottery in the 1990 season when 200 were inves- site at the southern outskirts of the village, tigated. This, together with the contemporary called Tammanagala after a low rock nearby PGIAR-KAVA preliminary investigations at (SO 5); and two were dug by the streambed Ibbankatuva (see below), was the first ex- of the Sigiri Oya, where potsherds had been cavation of a rural settlement site in Sri Lanka found. and must be seen as truly exploratory, not least The test excavations in the pansalvatta methodologically. yielded an ancient brick wall and tile debris. Excluding a few lithic finds that indicate They taught us that a temple at the site (of a Mesolithic presence at the site, the strati- which a number of stone pillars were pre- fication, the radiocarbon datings (albeit very viously known) had been abandoned after the few) and the artefacts showed three phases of 11'"century. settlement. Black-and-Red-Ware (BRW) The gammandiya excavations yielded pottery and a 3i4 century AD dating indicates

Current Swedish Arehaeology, Vo!. 7, l999 116 Mats Magren an Early Historic phase. The main phase at 1994a:105). Eighty square meters were the site as indicated by the quantity ofartefacts opened. was dated to the 5'"—6'" centuries AD. This The results were quite exciting. could coincide with the brief royal phase at Ibbankatuva-Polvatte proved to have two Sigiriya (AD 477—495), and it is possible to main phases of settlement. There are no discuss the site in terms of a suburb. A 9'"— transitionary forms between the two, but 10'" centuries AD dating in the uppermost according to the excavator there seems to have stratum shows that some activity had taken been a more or less continuous occupation at place there also after the royal period (Soma- the site. The earlier phase belongs to the deva 2 Kasturisinghe 1994).The difficulties Protohistoric period, 4'"—3""centuries BC, and with this kind of site were apparent; the is the phase contemporaneous with the mega- ground was quite hard and unfavourable for lithic cemetery close by. It is the first Proto- the preservation of organic remains. Also, in historic rural settlement excavated in Sri the upper strata, disturbances from later chena Lanka. In this phase were found several types (swidden) cultivation had destroyed the of carnelian, onyx and terracotta beads, a few stratigraphic sequence. copper and silver items, well-made Black- These first experiences of Sri Lankan and-Red-Ware (BRW) pottery and even the village archaeology were further developed remains of a pottery kiln. in 1991 in the excavation at the Ibbankatuva- The younger phase has only a very small Polvatta settlement site. It is situated ca. 3 amount of BRW pottery. Instead the domina- km south-west of Dambulla, between the bank ting redwares were found together with a of Dambulu Oya and the small mountain of resin-coated buff ware which is a Persian Punchi Dambulla Kanda. The settlement is import, fine grey ware and graphite-coated connected to the megalithic cemetery site of pottery. Among other important artefacts were Ibbankatuva, situated ca. 500 m west of the glass beads, glass bangles and iron slag, settlement and partly excavated within the notably a bottom slag from a bloomery framework ofthe PGIAR-KAVA (Sri Lankan- furnace. Radiocarbon datings from the upper German collaboration) program. Also some strata of this phase gave ca. 5'" century AD test excavations at the settlement site had been (Karunaratne 1994a). undertaken within this program. One of the major problems of Sri Lankan Sri Lankan archaeology has until recently settlement archaeology is the lack ofa reliable applied excavation methods developed de- and easily applied ceramic sequence for the cades ago. Several of the large-scale under- entire period under study, that is, approxi- takings within the Cultural Triangle frame- mately the last three millennia. work have, all through the 1980s at least, For the centuries around the beginning applied the "box-method" used by Sir Mor- of our Western time-reckoning there are some timer Wheeler at Arikamedu and other sites very diagnostic wares, such as the BRW, and in the 1940s. Different varieties of planum the blackwares etc. , but for most of the I" excavation are unfortunately still in use. The millennium AD there is mainly a ceramic SARCP did not feel obliged to adjust to this complex consisting of still rather undiagnostic situation. Thus it was natural for the SARCP redwares. A laudable attempt to sort it out team, under the field directorship ofPriyantha was made by the Czech scholar Martin Kuna Karunaratne, to improve on the methodology in the 1980s (Kuna 1987), but his classi- used in the previous fieldwork at Ibbankatuva- fication, based on rim-types, is complex and Polvatte, by applying a strict contextual difficult to use, so there was still a lot to be excavation and the Harris matrix, instead of achieved in this regard when the SARCP was the planum digging used earlier (Karunaratne at work.

Cta rent S~~edish Archaeology, Voh 7, l999 Seven Years in Sihugiri Bim 117

Fig. 4. The Mapagala gt.eat retaini ng vvall before escavation. The teant Inen&bers are standing just over the site of the trenclt. Photo: Mats Mogren.

The investigations of the long-running phases indicate that Ibbankatuva-Polvatte Anuradhapura Gedige (citadel) excavation must be regarded as a settlement with strong project have as one objective to establish a elite connections. The Dambulla temple, revised pottery chronology (Deraniyagala established some time around the transition 1986:44).This is an important project for Sri between the two phases, is visible from the Lankan archaeology as a whole, and with 9 site, and is probably a very important factor meters of deposit or more, the potential for for understanding the settlement, but also the establishing a practicable pottery chronology pre-Buddhist megalithic context has elite is great at this site. Few tasks of Sri Lankan traits. The fieldwork and subsequent analysis archaeology are more important than the carried out by Karunaratne and his colleagues publication of these results. It will give an has established this site as one of the more urban sequence, though, and this must be important archaeological finds in the country, checked against rural contexts to be fully especially as the Protohistoric/Early Historic applicable. With our rural setting we had to transition is one of the most debated periods suffice with the overarching knowledge of of Sri Lankan history. ceramics obtained earlier by individual team members at, for example, Anuradhapura. THE EXCAVATIONS IN THE SIGIRIYA In our project we made only a very crude COMPLEX seriation of wares from some of our sites, in Even though the main emphasis of the proj ect order to grasp the basics of our sequences was on the rural settlement around Sigiriya (Bandaranayake k Mogren 1994:37—38 and and Dambulla, some excavations were carried passim). The results of this test were of some out also in two relatively unknown parts of use for the understanding of the stratigraphy the Sigiriya complex itself. The objective was at both Ibbankatuva-Polvatte and Mapagala to check on the possibility of non-monastic (see below). elite structures before the time of the royal The pottery and small finds from both presence, and to get at least a preliminary

Current Sivedish Archaeologv, Vol. 7, I999 118 Mals Magren impression of the nature of urban habitation. Mapagala retaining wall being older than the Starting with test excavations in 1989, the vava bund, and the existence of a settlement investigations continued in the following site that predates the bund. Its cultural deposit seasons on a slightly larger scale. contained black ware and an unidentifiable One of the enigmatic features of the Roman copper coin. Sigiriya complex has been the citadel-like In 1990 the great retaining wall was structures of Mapagala. Mapagala is in fact trenched in order to date it. A thorough two adjacent rocks, divided by a small crevice, stratigraphic analysis was carried out (the about 400 meters south of the Sigiriya com- excavation was in fact used as a field work- plex proper, with a number of ruined struc- shop in the use of the Harris matrix) and a tures, most notably an encircling retaining number of radiocarbon datings showed that wall of "cyclopean" proportions, which the wall had been built after cal. 306—517 AD creates a terrace around most of the northern (Ua-5220; la), but before cal. 432—550 AD and western base of the rocks (fig. 4). In its (Ua-5501; 1 a). Thus it could very well coin- preserved state it is up to 4 meters high and cide with the short period of royal presence built of undressed stones up to 2.5 x 2.5 at Sigiriya during the reign of Kasyapa I meters in size. The Mapagala rocks were once (477-495 AD). The earlier of the two radio- part of the bund of the ancient Sigiri Maha- carbon datings is from a cultural deposit vava, and the water of the tank lashed the predating the wall. It had a fair amount of eastern side (see below). The whole site redware and only a small amount of BRW. measures about 250,000 m". There was also some iron slag in the layer Earlier dating suggestions for the wall (Kumaradasa 1994). span from the megalithic period (ca. 1000— The Mapagala excavations taught us that 300 BC) up to the period of royal presence at the immediate area around the Sigiriya Sigiriya (477—495 AD), and comparisons complex had remains of habitation from both have been made with both South European the prehistoric period and (probably con- and South American "cyclopean" walls (see tinuously) from the last centuries BC on, that review in Kumaradasa 1994:115). the great wall could be a work from Kasyapa's A modern mapping of the entire area was time, and that the wall is older than the tank carried out by the SARCP team; the earlier bund of Sigiri Mahavava. All these facts are mapping was done by H.C.P. Bell in 1907 very important pieces in the jigsaw puzzle of and found to be inadequate for our purposes. Sigiriya. Two test pits were dug on the summit of the The Eastern Precinct of the Sigiriya inner northern rock. One did not yield any results, city, a walled area east of the Sigiriya rock but the other one, which was dug in a shallow measuring ca. 800 x 500 meters, has been depression in the rock where debris had been thought to be the habitational area of the city washed down and imbedded in alluvial layers, population. In order to check on this a few yielded evidence that the rock summit had test pits and larger trenches were excavated. been used by both a Mesolithic group of The responsible field director, Priyantha people and later by a community using Proto- Karunaratne, summed up the results from /Early Historic BRW pottery (pre-4'" century these probes in an article that gives quite a AD). different view ofthe site (Karunaratne 1994b). Immediately adjacent to Mapagala on the Some Prehistoric and Protohistoric pre- southern side, just where the constructed sence within the Eastern precinct was recor- Sigiri Mahavava bund starts anew, two more ded at the very large boulder Aligala, but there test pits were dug. The most important results was nothing or very little within the inner from these pits were the clear evidence of the ramparts from the period of royal presence

Current Swedish Archaeology, Vol. 7, l999 Seven Years in Sihagiri Birn 119 during Kasyapa's reign. The settlement traces but the work by Karunaratne has provided from that period were instead found north of future researchers with a well-founded hypo- the Eastern precinct, between the inner and thesis about this neglected part of the ancient outer ramparts and outside the outer rampart. city. Hence the idea was bom that the Eastern precinct had functioned as a ceremonial park IRON PRODUCTION STUDIES with an axial layout just like the pleasure Sites designated by the occurrence ofiron slag gardens west of the rock, and with a large were registered from the very first day of ceremonial pavilion at the centre of the fieldwalking in 1988, but it was after the precinct (fig. 5). discovery of a site situated in the southern During the explorations in the area, the Kiri Oya basin, 8.5 km south-east of Sigiriya, nature of "breaches" in the northern and near the village of Alakolavava (Manjusri southern ramparts were understood. They 1990), that it became obvious to us that a were in fact gateways leading into the park certain emphasis must be given to iron &om the Inner City habitational areas. Next production studies in order to understand the to the northern gateway a probable ritual ancient landscape surrounding Sigiriya and building of some kind was excavated, the only Dambulla. structure in the Sigiriya complex with stone The site, a low rock close to the perennial pillars (Karunaratne 1994b). Kiri Oya tributary Dehigaha-ala, had on its A lot of work remains to be done regar- western slopes about half a dozen very large ding the investigation ofthe Eastern Precinct, slag heaps. The largest one measured around

Fig. 5. Interpretative map of the Sigiriya complex including Mapagala and part ofthe Sigiri Mahavava, according to P. Karunaratne. (Map by PGIAR Cartographic Unit. Courtesy of PGIAR, Colombo)

Current Swedish Archaeology, Voh 7, l999 120 Mats Magren

Fig. 6. The field director of the Dehigaha-ala-kanda excavati ons, Rose Solangaarachchi, standing by the best preserved smelting furnace. Photo. ' Mats Mogren.

55 meters in length and around 4 meters in and through experiments (Juleff 1996), has height. This was an iron production site of not been used at Dehigaha-ala-kanda. industrial proportions. In 1990 and 1991 a The smelting at Dehigaha-ala-kanda was number of trenches were excavated and five indeed high-tech, and the gain must have furnaces were discovered, four ofwhich were been enormous. It is not easy to calculate the meticulously excavated by Rose Solangaa- output of the production, but it could have rachchi, Svante Forenius and their team been measured in tens of thousands of tons (Forenius & Solangaarachchi 1994; Solan- of raw iron. The ore used has also been found gaarachchi 1995). at the site, a very pure magnetite, which must The furnaces were of surprisingly large have necessitated some kind of flux. Which dimensions. They measured 0.8 0.95 meters one is unfortunately not known, so chemical in width at the bottom, were more or less calculations are difficult, in spite of our bottle-shaped and originally about 2 meters familiarity with the ore, the clay and the slag. high. The best-preserved one had a back wall The site has been dated by means of both standing 1.6 meters high (fig. 6). They were pottery and radiocarbon datings. The pottery constructed in carved-out pits in the bedrock, spans the time from the Protohistoric/Early about I meter deep. The most astonishing fact Historic transition (ca. 3'" century BC) until about the furnaces, though, was the solution about the 4" century AD. It is partly very of the problem of air supply. Close to the reminiscent of pottery from Anuradhapura, bottom of the rectilinear front walls, eight and consists of coarse BRW, fine black ware cylindrical tuyeres made of a special heat- and red ware. The radiocarbon datings more resistant clay and lying close together like or less confirm the pottery datings, and the organ pipes guaranteed the highest possible production can be said to span from at least accuracy in temperature control during the the I" century BC until the 4'" century AD, smelting process. The air was supplied by in other words it is pre-Kasyapan (Forenius bellows. The natural draught process docu- & Solangaarachchi 1994). mented by Gillian Juleff at Samanalawewa At the Dehigaha-ala-kanda site one riddle in southern Sri Lanka, both archaeologically of Sri Lankan archaeology seemed to get its

Current Swedish Arehaeology, Vot. 7, l999 Seven Years in Silragiri Bhn 121 solution. At many locations on the island system of the Indian Ocean. Sri Lanka has conical holes with smooth inner faces have become one of the more conspicuous dots on been carved in solid rock. At Dehigaha-ala- the world map of ancient iron production. kanda they are 15—20 cm in diameter and of various depths up to 15 cm, Henry Parker IRRIGATION STUDIES (1909, repr. 1984:221 234) was among the The key feature of pre-modern society in the first to take notice of these features, and he Sri Lankan dry zone is undoubtedly the interpreted them as connected with the irrigation systems. Without them the popu- activities of the stone masons in building lation of the area would have had to rely on monasteries. In the first season of the SARCP swidden cultivation, which could not have it was observed, however, that there is a supported as many peopl e. Without irrigation spatial connection between such conical holes the complexity of ancient society in the and the occurrence of iron slag (Mogren 1990: Sihagiri Bim as we know it would have been 58 59). Around the holes are found pieces of unthinkable. ore, and it can be conjectured that the holes Irrigation systems can be grouped into two have something to do with a grinding process, main categories. The first, also in the chrono- perhaps being formed by a revolving grinding logical sense, is paddy cultivation based on machinery. In the following fieldwork seasons village tanks, that is, reservoirs constructed many more sites were found which further and maintained within the framework of the strengthened this assumption. single village, or in co-operation with neigh- The Dehigaha-ala-kanda site is not enti- bouring villages. These tanks were productive rely unique in the region. Another three enough to support also a few non-food pro- known sites can also be considered as being ducers and to have been used from the of industrial proportions: one site at Kosgaha- introduction of irrigation in the I" millen- ala ca. 6 km east of Sigiriya; one at Kudagona nium BC to the present. The second is paddy vava ca. 11 km south of Sigiriya; and one at cultivation based on a macro-system, with Kiralessa in the southernmost part of the larger tanks and trans-basin feeder canals research area ca. 22 km south-west of Sigi- ensuring a more steady water supply. This riya. In addition to this there are a number of will support a larger population in a given sites of more humble proportions. Up to and area and also a larger group of non-food including the 1992 field season a total of 46 producers (Myrdal-Runebjer 1994a, 1996: sites had been found which showed evidence 40ff, 195f). of iron processing: furnace walls, smelting After initial map studies and field surveys slag, forging slag, conical holes and/or it became apparent that all tanks in the crushed magnetite (Karunaratne & Mogren, Sihagiri Bim, except for one, were of the unpubl. ). There are no datings from these former type, with all the implications that has sites, except for Ibbankatuva-Polvatte, where for uncertain yields and dependence on iron smelting was documented from the Early auxiliary swidden cultivation. The exception Historic phase (4"—5" centuries or slightly is the medium-sized Sigiri Mahavava, the earlier) (Karunaratne 1994a). To summarise bund of which extends from the base of the the data, it is clearly evident that the region Sigiriya rock and 7.8 km southwards. The was a very important iron production area, at Mahavava does not have an optimal topo- least during the first half of the first millen- graphical location; it has a very small catch- nium AD. It is not an exaggeration to say ment area and needs a connection to neigh- that the production of the Sihagiri Bim, and bouring basins, an observation made already of other iron-producing areas of Sri Lanka, at the end of the 19"century by Blair (1898). must have been of importance for the world- Within the SARCP framework, Eva

Carrent Sveedish Arehaeolog&:, Voh 7, 1999 122 Mats Magren

Myrdal-Runebjer and her team undertook to PREHISTORY map, level and describe this system, which There is no zero-point in human history, so a was very poorly understood prior to the deep temporal perspective comes natural in project. She focused on the function, dating, a project which has the objective to investigate construction techniques, and, perhaps most the settlement history of a given region. Sri important, the potential of production and Lankan Stone Age research has proved the labour investment. During a five-season existence of Stone Age foragers on the island program, test excavations and extensive from at least ca. 40,000 years BP. There are surveys yielded results that together form a even datings that seem to be pushing the much clearer picture of the macro-system. oldest Prehistory back to ca. 125,000 BP. (In It was found that the bund extended much Sri Lanka the term Prehistory is equivalent further south than Blair had realised. It was to Stone Age, and it is in fact mostly a also found that there are three supply canals, Mesolithic culture that is described, with very two of which are intended to lead water from early dates for geometric microliths. No clear the neighbouring basins, not only from the Neolithic has been discernible so far in the Kiri Oya basin but also, through the tank Sri Lankan record, but there is still room for bund's connection with Vegolle vava, from new discoveries, so it can not be ruled out the Mirisgoni Oya basin. The labour input entirely. ) These old dates come from the was enormous, but the total data set shows central highland regions of the island and the that the system was never completed as a western and southern foothills. The plain functional entity. The available datings give north and east of the highlands (the dry zone) the late 5'" century AD as a terminus post had been neglected by Prehistory researchers, quem for the system, that is, it could very well and it is only from the outset of the SARCP have been initiated during the short reign of that problem-oriented studies have been Kasyapa I at Sigiriya. "The unfavourable initiated, conducted by Gamini Adikari, who location of the transbasin system indicates during the course of the project and in its that it was built in a conscious attempt to aftermath has collected substantial and increase the agricultural production in an area valuable data which enable him for the first that had become important in other respects", time to describe the dry lowland Mesolithic Myrdal-Runebjer writes in her dissertation (Adikari 1994a). (1996:197),in a sentence that elegantly sums Just prior to the project some evidence of up the results of the sub-project. Mesolithic camps was found in the rock When the dissertation was defended in shelter excavations of the PGIAR-KAVA Gothenburg in January 1997, the opponent project at Pidurangala and Dambulla. Meso- Maurizio Tozi called the Sigiri Mahavava lithic sites were also discovered through investigations "the archaeology of a dream", hearsay, for example from people involved a dream that was never realised. As such it in construction work at monastic sites. This has an interest to the researchers of ancient was the case at the very important site of society, but when reading the dissertation it Potana, situated ca. 4 km west of Sigiriya. is also interesting to note, almost as an During the SARCP work of the 1989 season, innuendo, that the villagers managed very Mesolithic remains were found at three well without it. After the interrupted attempt excavation sites where investigations were to create a transbasin system with relatively pursued with other objectives: the open-air unfavourable prerequisites, parts of the long sites of Tammannagala and Mapagala (see bund were used for village tanks, and still above) and at the small rock shelter of are as is the case with the present, much Aligala, within the Eastern Precinct of the smaller, Sigiri vava and the Kayanvala vava. Sigiriya complex and at the base of the

Current Swedish Archaeology, Vol. 7, 1999 Seven Years in Sihagiri Bim 123

Sigiriya rock itself. mined), if they did not shift location them- In 1990Aligala became the site ofthe first selves following the monsoon seasons. The problem-oriented excavation of a Prehistoric Mesolithic deposits were radiocarbon dated deposit, larger than a test pit, in the dry zone to the 3' and 4'" millennia BC (Karunaratne lowlands. Sixty-four square meters were & Adikari 1994). investigated, and the Prehistoric deposit In the following season the main cave at proved to be up to ca. 80 cm deep. It was Potana was targeted for excavation. The site covered with Protohistoric and Early Historic is in fact a cluster of 12 rock shelters in a layers. Both bone and stone (chert and quartz) gneiss-granite outcrop, in which a monastic implements were found. The microliths had establishment was planning to expand with both geometric and other forms. new buildings. The excavation was, therefore, The ecofacts found were equally im- a rescue operation. The main cave measures portant. A number of large and small mam- ca. 100 m", of which 93 m" of the 1 meter mals had been part of the diet, as well as deep deposit were excavated (fig. 7). In monitor lizards. Of the five mollusc species addition to this a 5 m" test pit was excavated found, three are today encountered only in in a neighbouring rock shelter. From this the wet zone. The same is true for the dik excavation ca. 1000 kg of faunal remains were kakuna plant (Carnarium sp. ), of which retrieved in addition to numerous lithic charred seeds were found in the deposit. These artefacts. Most exciting, though, was the facts have raised questions regarding possible discovery of Mesolithic burials; two complete climate shifts. On the other hand red ochre skeletons (the first intact ones found in Sri and graphite, found in the layers, does not Lanka) plus numerous disturbed skeletal occur naturally in the region either, so the remains. The radiocarbon dating of the explanation might be that the foragers of Potana deposits concentrate to the early 4'" Aligala had long-distance contacts with the millennium BC, but the skeletons are slightly wet zone (where graphite is found and older (Adikari 1994b).

Fig. 7. The excavation of the Meso- lithic rock shelter at Potana. Photo: Mats Mogren.

Current Swedish Archaeology, Vol. 7, 1999 124 Mats Mogren

ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY A great deal of effort was put into the Analogy has been the foundation of archaeo- documentation of trapping, hunting and logical interpretation ever since we stopped fishing. It was found that the economic role believing that stone axes were thunderbolts. of trapping in the modern peasant society of We would understand very little of past the region is far from negligible. Chena fields contexts if we could not make comparisons attract wild animals and a number of in- with what we know from the present. The genious devices for trapping them are in use, ethnoarchaeology of the SARCP did not specially constructed for each species confine itself to mere analogies, however. It (Myrdal-Runebj er 1994c). was an attempt to gain knowledge about the Of special importance for settlement "material requirements of reality" (Myrdal- archaeology and especially for the excavations Runebjer 1994b:227). Aspects of seasonal of rural settlements, were the studies under- planning, labour investment and return, and taken regarding traditional housing. These the socio-economic implications of this were were carried out mainly in Talkote and in focus. The emphasis was on the household Nagalavava villages. The latter still had parts and its food procurement. of a clustered gammandiya intact (fig. 8), the The studies carried out within the SARCP houses ofwhich were documented in plan and framework, initiated and supervised by Eva elevation. Special attention was paid to Myrdal-Runebjer, were an introduction only; "archaeologically visible" features like the the task of documenting the entire field of position of the kurctkkan gala (millet quern), contemporary "traditional" household-related the miris gala (chilli grinding stone) and the work is enormous and some of the objectives katta gana gala (a big permanent whetstone fell far short of the ambition. In spite of this for sharpening tools). Taphonomic processes quite a lot was achieved, so much in fact that were approached by documenting recently it is difficult to summarise here. We were abandoned dwellings (Myrdal-Runebj er et al. greatly helped by having one team member 1994). who combined an academic background in With all the source-critical implications archaeology and a profession as school- observed, the ethnoarchaeological studies teacher, with being a part-time farmer himsel f helped a lot in understanding the past con- from the area; Anura Yasapala of Talkote texts. When working in a still partly "tradi- contributed not only his own first-hand tional" (which does not mean static) setting, knowledge, but he also conveyed contacts as we did, there is every reason to bring with other farming households of the region. settlement archaeology up to the living The seasonal cycles were documented for present. The food procurement strategies of several households in different villages, and the present are not fundamentally different the food procurement techniques including from the past, and in the case of housing there ethno-botany, storage, housing, the tools and is reason to believe that similar techniques the measurement systems were given atten- and similar uses of space have been in use tion, as well as the "archaeological visibility" over a very long period of time. Most im- of all this and the taphonomical processes portant perhaps was the insight gained into involved. The data could be grouped into two several source-critical aspects of settlement, technological complexes: wet-rice cultivation that might have escaped us if we had been with animal husbandry and some fishing in working in a more "modern" setting. the tanks, and swidden cultivation with hunting and trapping. These are of course A PROJECT IN RETROSPECT abstract categorisations, and in reality there The project was rounded up in 1994 with the are always found combinations of the two. publication of the second project volume and

Current Swedish Archaeology, Vol. 7, l999 Seven Yearsirr Silrugini Birrr 125

Fig. 8. The r emaini ng Par't of' the Nagalavava gammantiiva. Photo: Mats Mognen.

with a conference in Colombo attended by reality is always much more complicated than Sri Lankan and Swedish scholars, also from the most elaborate model, was hopefully outside the project group. Some lingering implanted. Also in the temporal dimension a tasks were completed in early 1995. few puzzle pieces were put into place. Mapa- We learned from working in the Sihagiri gala and Sigiri Mahavava were fairly well Bim that Sri Lankan settlement archaeology dated and can now be discussed in the is a fountain of archaeological wealth, once Sigiriyan context with better foundation. you open the field to research. We were so Socially the concept of the centralist polity overwhelmed by the amount of data lying could be questioned, even though no other before us that we quickly realised the im- well-founded societal structures could be possibility of grasping more than just a presented with the data at hand. In the fragment of it within the limitations of our economical sphere the studies of iron pro- project. It was frustrating and exciting at the duction, irrigation and food procurement same time. One example could be the amount meant great leaps forward. of pottery retrieved from a single excavation One thing we did not solve, a problem of a rural settlement, such as Ibbankatuva- that occupied our thoughts all through the Polvatte. It measured in tons. We did not project, was the so-called collapse of the expect that. How does one deal with such Rajarata civilisation. With this is understood abundance? the apparently sudden disintegration of the Another example could be the number of Anuradhapura/Polonnaruva polity in the sites; so many were found in just a few days 12'" 13'r' centuries (cf. Liyanagamage 1968; of fieldwalking that plotting and documen- Indrapala 1971).We saw traces of destruction tation became a major problem for us. and abandonment in the archaeological Merely scraping the surface did not con- record —e.g. at Talkote pansalvatta where ceal the fact that we were able to problematize the brick building documented apparently was a few taken-for-granted concepts, such as the destroyed after the 11'"century —but we were one-tank-one-village model. The notion that not able to contribute anything to the solution

Crrrreni Srvedish Archaeologv, Vot. 7, l999 126 Mats Mogren of this great problem complex. This is cer- is invaluable. For us it was definitely worth tainly a worthy objective for a large-scale the effort. Some of us might say that those project ofthe future, a project with much more were the hitherto best years of our lives. resources than we had. The ones to do it are possibly the group THE FUTURE of young Sri Lankan archaeologists that got The SARCP established a great number of some of their training in the SARCP and who enduring personal relationships between Sri now form part of the core of Sri Lankan Lankan and Swedish archaeologists. Several archaeology. About 100 students passed young Sri Lankan archaeologists have visited through the project during the years in the Sweden starting in 1992. Links to the uni- field. About 20 % of them have acquired versities in Sweden have been formed and positions in the archaeological infrastructure short- or medium-term educational programs of the country. Others have become teachers have been set up for individual Sri Lankans or joined other professions where they con- in Lund, Stockholm and Uppsala, and Ph. D. tribute to the general understanding of programs are in planning. Students from archaeology. A number of M.Phil. disser- Stockholm and Uppsala have visited Sri tations have been completed or are just being Lanka within SIDA's MFS (Minor Field completed, and Ph. D.s are under way. During Studies) program. the project period a cartographic and photo- In 1997 two young Sri Lankans, Gamini graphic unit was built up at the PGIAR, Adikari and Sujeewa Jasinghe, spent a month producing beautiful maps and pictures. The in Lund attending a special course in histo- skills of editing and publishing were gra- rical osteology, and during that visit a per- dually acquired through contributions by a manent collaboration agreement between the number of persons. With the help of Urve Institute of Archaeology at Lund University Miller and Jan Risberg at the Institute of and the PGIAR was signed, aiming at future Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University, exchange on the graduate-student level and a paleobotanical know-how gained a foothold lecturers' level, but also at joint research at PGIAR. The project can claim to have programs. The content of this was further contributed at least a bit to the development discussed during a visit to Sri Lanka by the of personal resources in Sri Lankan archaeo- present author in March 1998, and during a logy, but we also brought with us back to visit by Senake Bandaranayake to Lund in Sweden insights that have become useful, not August 1998. to say fundamental, for some of the work that Sri Lankan archaeology has long since is being implemented here today. come of age, so there is a very limited need We who were involved in this quest for for the "aid-programs" of the past. Further- knowledge, spent a great deal of our youth or more, there is certainly no room in today's early mature age in the jungles and small world for "expeditionary" archaeology, where purana villages of the Sihagiri Bim. In spite European or North American archaeologists of all the problems, fears and sorrows ofthose set off to "discover" this and that in foreign years, we sometimes think back longingly, countries. The Lund/PGIAR program, there- Swedes and Sri Lankans alike. Today the fore, is founded on the principle of total Sihagiri Bim is rapidly changing. Some of reciprocity; exchange will go both ways and our sites are destroyed by "development" or no research issues will be included which are the establishment of new settlements, others not possible to study in both countries by Sri are threatened. The privilege of having been Lankan and Swedish colleagues in colla- part of the very first steps into the untrodden boration. We all hope that this will initiate territory of Sri Lankan settlement archaeology some new developments in archaeology in

Current Swedish Archaeology, Vol. 7, 1999 Seven Years in Sihagiri Bim 127

both countries. We can learn immensely from A SNO 14'LEDGEMENTS each other. Research problems of one part of I am naturally very indebted to the numerous the globe need not be alien to another part. colleagues, Sri Lankan and Swedish, who It's a small world after all. together formed and developed this project. The credit is theirs, any mistakes are entirely English revised by Laura harang. mine. Special thanks to Professor Senake Bandaranayake who, besides a decade of good advice, also took time to look through this text before publication.

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