Rockshelter sedimentation in a dynamic tropical landscape: Late pleistocene-early holocene archaeological deposits in kitulgala beli-lena, southwestern Sri Lanka

Geoarchaeology

Volumn 24, Issue 6, 2009, Pages 677-714

  Kourampas, Nikos ^a   Simpson, Ian A ^a   Perera, Nimal ^b,c   Deraniyagala, Siran U ^b   Wijeyapala, W H ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING   (United Kingdom)

^b Excavation Branch   (Sri Lanka)

^c AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BRECCIA; COMBUSTION; EPISODIC EVENT; GNEISS; HOLOCENE; HUMAN ACTIVITY; HUMID ENVIRONMENT; HUNTER-GATHERER; LAST GLACIAL MAXIMUM; MICROMORPHOLOGY; PLEISTOCENE; RAINFOREST; SEDIMENTATION;

SRI LANKA;

EID: 70350069046     PISSN: 08836353     EISSN: 15206548     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/gea.20287     Document Type: Article

References (94)

1. Anderson, D.D. (1997). Cave archaeology in Southeast Asia. Geoarchaeology, 12, 607-638.
2. Anhuf, D., Ledru, M.-P., Behling, H., Da Cruz Jr., F.W., Cordeiro, R.C., Van der Hammen, T., Karmann, I., Marengo, J.A., De Oliveira, P.E., Passenda, L., Siffedine, A., Albuquerque, A.L., & Da Silva Dias, P.L. (2006). Paleo-environmental change in Amazonian and African rainforest during the LGM. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 239, 510-527.
3. Barker, G., Reynolds, T., & Gilbertson, D. (2005). The human use of caves in peninsular and island Southeast Asia: Research themes. Asian Perspectives, 44, 1-15.
4. Barker, G., Barton, H., Bird, M., Daly, P., Datan, I., Dykes, A., Farr, L., Gilbertson, D., Garrisson, B., Hunt, C., Higham, T., Kealhofer, L., Krigbaum, J., Lewis, H., McLaren, S., Paz, V., Pike, A., Piper, P., Pyatt, B., Rabett, R., Reynolds, T., Rose, J., Rushworth, G., Stephens M., Stringer, C., Thompson, J., & Turney, C. (2007). The "human revolution" in lowland tropical Southeast Asia: The antiquity and behavior of anatomically modern humans at Niah Cave (Sarawak, Borneo). Journal of Human Evolution, 52, 243-261.
5. Bird, M.I., Taylor, D., & Hunt, C. (2005). Palaeoenvironments of insular Southeast Asia during the Last Glacial Period: A savanna corridor in Sundaland? Quaternary Science Reviews, 24, 2228-2242.
6. Bird, M.I., Boobyer, E.M., Bryant, C., Lewis, H., Paz, V., & Stephens, W.E. (2007). A long record of envi-ronmental change from bat guano deposits in Makangit Cave, Palawan, Philippines. Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 98, 59-69.
7. Birkeland, P.W. (1984). Soils and geomorphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
8. Bremer, H. (1985) Soil and slope development in the wet zone of Sri Lanka. In I. Douglas & T. Spencer (Eds.), Environmental change and tropical geomorphology (pp. 295-301). British Geomorphological Research Group. London: Allen & Unwin.
9. Bremer, H., Schnütgen, A., Späth, H., Tillmanns, W., Symander, W., & Stein, W. (Eds.). (1981). Zur Morphogenese in den feuchten Tropen. Verwitterung und Reliefbildung am Beispiel von Sri Lanka. Relief Boden Paläoklima 1. Berlin: Gerbrüder Borntraeger.
10. Bulbeck, D., Rayner, D., Groves, C., & Pathmanathan, R. (2003). The contribution of South Asia to the peopling of Australasia and the relevance of Basel's Naturhistorisch Museum anthropological collection to the project aims. Bulletin de Societé Suisse d'Anthropologie, 9, 49-70.
11. Bullock, P., Fedoroff, N., Jongerius, A., Stoops, G., Tursina, T., & Babel, U. (1985). Handbook for soil thin section description. Albrington: Waine Research Publications.
12. Butzer, K.W. (1981). Cave sediments, Upper Pleistocene stratigraphy and Mousterian facies in Cantabrian Spain. Journal of Archaeological Science, 8, 133-183.
13. Collins, N.M. (1989). Termites. In H. Lieth & M.J.A. Werger (Eds.), Tropical rain forest ecosystems: Biogeographical and ecological studies (pp. 455-469). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
14. Cooray, P.G. (1984). The geology of Sri Lanka. Colombo: National Museum Publications.
15. Courty, M.A. (1986) Quelques faciès d'altération de fragments carbonatés en grottes et abris sous roches préhistoriques. Bulletin de l'Association française pour l'etude du Quaternaire, 3/4, 282-289.
16. Courty, M.A. (2001) Microfacies analysis assisting archaeological stratigraphy. In P. Goldberg, V.T. Holliday, & C.R. Ferring (Eds.), Earth sciences and archaeology (pp. 205-239). New York: Kluver.
17. Courty, M.A., & Vallverdú, J. (2001) The microstratigraphic record of abrupt climate changes in cave sed-iments of the western Mediterranean. Geoarchaeology, 16, 467-500.
18. Courty, M.A., Goldberg, P., & Macphail, R. (1989). Soils and micromorphology in archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
19. Cosarinski, M.I., & Roces, F. (2007) Neighbor leaf-cutting ants and mound-building termites: Comparative nest micromorphology. Geoderma, 141, 224-234.
20. Dalrymple, J.B., & Theocharopoulos, S.P. (1984). Intrapedal cutans: Experimental production of depositional cutans (illuviation) channel argillans. Geoderma, 33, 237-243.
21. Davidson, D.A., & Simpson, I. (2001). Archaeology and soil micromorphology. In D.R. Brothwell & A.M. Pollard (Eds.), Handbook of archaeological sciences (pp. 167-177). Chichester: Wiley.
22. Dejean, A., Bolton, B., & Durand, J.L. (1997). Cubitermes subarquatus termitaries as shelters for soil fauna in African rainforests. Journal of Natural History, 31, 1289-1302.
23. Delvigne, J.E. (1998). Atlas of micromorphology of mineral alteration and weathering. The Canadian Mineralogist Special Publication 3. Ottawa: Mineralogical Association of Canada.
24. Deraniyagala, S.U. (1992). The prehistory of Sri Lanka: An ecological perspective, Parts I and II. Colombo: Department of Archaeological Survey, Government of Sri Lanka.
25. Domrös, M. (1974). The agroclimate of Ceylon: A contribution towards the ecology of tropical crops. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner.
26. Endicott, P., Metspalu, M., & Kivisild, T. (2007). Genetic evidence on modern human dispersals in South Asia: Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA perspectives: The world through the eyes of two hap-loid genomes. In M.D. Petraglia & B. Allchin (Eds.), The evolution and history of human populations in South Asia: Interdisciplinary studies in archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistics and genetics (pp. 229-244), Dordrecht: Springer.
27. Field, J.S., Petraglia, M.D., & Lahr, M.M. (2007). The southern dispersal hypothesis and the South Asian archaeological record: Examination of dispersal routes through GIS analysis. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 26, 88-108.
28. Gaussen, H., Legris, P., Viart, M., & Labroue, L. (1968). Explanatory notes on the vegetation map of Ceylon. Colombo: Government Press.
29. Geological Survey and Mines Bureau. (1996). Colombo-Ratnapura (1:100,000). Colombo: Geological Survey and Mines Bureau.
30. Gifford-Gonzalez, D.P., Damrosch, D.B., Damrosch, D.R., Pryor, J., & Thunen, R.L. (1985). The third dimension in site structure: An experiment in trampling and vertical dispersal. American Antiquity, 50, 803-818.
31. Gilbertson, D., Bird, M., Hunt, C., McLaren, S., Mani Banda, R., Pyatt, B., Rose, J., & Stephens, M. (2005). Past human activity and geomorphological change in a guano-rich tropical cave mouth: Initial inter-pretations of the Late Quaternary succession in the Great Cave of Niah, Sarawak. Asian Perspectives, 44, 16-41.
32. Gillieson, D. (1996). Caves: Processes, development and management. Oxford: Blackwell.
33. Gillieson, D., Oldfield, F., & Krawiecki, A. (1986). Soil erosion from rock-shelter sites in Papua New Guinea. Mountain Research and Development, 6, 315-324.
34. Goldberg, P., & Macphail, R.I. (2006). Practical and theoretical geoarchaeology. Oxford: Blackwell.
35. Goldberg, P., & Sherwood, S.C. (2006). Deciphering human prehistory through the geoarcheological study of cave sediments. Evolutionary Anthropology, 15, 20-36.
36. Greenway, D.R. (1987). Vegetation and slope stability. In M.G. Anderson & K.S. Richards (Eds.), Slope stability (pp. 187-230), Chischester: Willey.
37. Gunatilaka, A. (2000). Sea-levels as historical time-markers in prehistoric studies. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka, 45, 19-34.
38. Gunatilaka, A. (2007). Role of basin-wide landslides in the formation of extensive alluvial gemstones in Sri Lanka. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 32, 1863-1873.
39. Gunatilaka, A., & Almond, D.C. (2001). Serendipity and the jewels of Serendib: Part 2. External processes and climatic framework that influenced the genesis of the multi-species gemstone province in Sri Lanka. Journal of the Geological Society of Sri Lanka, 10, 49-67.
40. Gupta, A.K., Anderson, D.M., & Overpeck J.T. (2003). Abrupt changes in the Asian southwest monsoon during the Holocene and their links to the North Atlantic Ocean. Nature, 421, 354-357.
41. Hansen, J. (2001). Macroscopic plant remains from Mediterranean caves and rockshelters: avenues of interpretation. Geoarchaeology, 16, 401-432.
42. Harwood, G. (1988). Microscopic techniques: II. Principles of sedimentary petrography. In M. Tucker (Ed.) Techniques in sedimentology (pp. 108-173), Oxford: Blackwell.
43. Hawkey, D.A. (2003). The peopling of South Asia: Evidence for affinities in microevolution of prehistoric populations of India and Sri Lanka. Spolia Zeylandica 39. Colombo: National Museums Department.
44. Hunt, C.O., Gilbertson, D.D., & Rushworth, G. (2007). Modern humans in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, during oxygen isotope stage 3: Palaeonvironmental evidence from the Great Cave of Niah. Journal of Archaeological Science, 34, 1953-1969.
45. Ivanochko, T.S., Ganeshram, R.S., Brummer, G.-J.A., Ganssen, G., Jung, S.J.A., Moreton, S.G., & Kroon, D. (2005). Variations in tropical convection as an amplifier of global climate change at the millennial scale. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 235, 302-314.
46. Jackson, S.T., & Overpeck, J.T. (2000). Responses of plant populations and communities to environmental changes of the late Quaternary. Palaeobiology, 26, 194-220.
47. James, H.V.A. (2007). The emergence of modern human behaviour in South Asia: A review of the current evidence and discussion of the possible implications. In M.D. Petraglia & B. Allchin, (Eds.), The evolution and history of human populations in South Asia: Interdisciplinary studies in archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistics and genetics (pp. 268-281). Dordrecht: Springer.
48. Jungerius, P.D., van der Anker, J.A.M., & Mücher, H.J. (1999). The contribution of termites to the micro-granular structure of soils on the Uasin Gishu Plateau, Kenya. Catena, 34, 349-363.
49. Kajale, M.D. (1989). Mesolithic exploitation of wild plants in Sri Lanka: Archaeobotanical study at the cave site of Beli-Lena. In D.R. Harris & G.C. Hillman (Eds.), Foraging and farming: The evolution of plant exploitation (pp. 268-281). London: Unwin Hyman.
50. Karkanas, P. (2001). Site formation processes in Theopetra Cave: A record of climatic change during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene in Thessaly, Greece. Geoarchaeology, 16, 373-399.
51. Karkanas, P., Bar-Yosef, O., Goldberg, P., & Weiner, S. (2000). Diagenesis in prehistoric caves: The use of minerals that form in situ to assess the completeness of the archaeological record. Journal of Archaeological Science, 27, 915-929.
52. Karkanas, P., Kyparissi-Apostolika, N., Bar-Yosef, O., & Weiner, S. (1999). Mineral assemblages in Theopetra, Greece: A framework for understanding diagenesis in a prehistoric cave. Journal of Archaeological Science, 26, 1171-1180.
53. Karkanas, P., Rigaud, J.-P., Simek, J.F., Albert, R.M., & Weiner, S. (2002). Ash, bones and guano: A study of the minerals and phytoliths in the sediments of Grotte XVI, Dordogne, France. Journal of Archaeological Science, 29, 721-732.
54. Kennedy, K.A.R. (1999). Paleoanthropology of South Asia. Evolutionary Anthropology, 8, 165-185.
55. Kennedy, K.A.R., & Deraniyagala, S.U. (1989). Fossil remains of 28,000-year-old hominids from Sri Lanka. Current Anthropology, 30, 394-399.
56. Kennedy, K.A.R., Deraniyagala, S.U., Roertgen, W.J., Chiment J., & Disotell, T. (1987). Upper Pleistocene fossil hominids from Sri Lanka. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 72, 441-461.
57. Kourampas, N., Simpson, I.A., Perera, H.N., & Deraniyagala, S.U. (2008). Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in the South Asian rainforest: Geoarchaeology of inhabited rockshelters in south-western Sri Lanka. Antiquity, 82. Available at: http://antiquity.ac.uk/Projgall/kourampas/index.html.
58. Lachniet, M.S. (2009). Climatic and environmental controls on speleothem oxygen isotope values. Quaternary Science Reviews, 28, 412-432.
59. Lambeck, K., & Chappell, J. (2001). Sea level change through the last glacial cycle. Science, 292, 679-686.
60. Laville, H., Rigaud, J.Ph., & Sackett, J. (1980). Rockshelters of the Périgord. Geological stratigraphy and Archaeological Succession. London: Academic Press.
61. Leushner, D.C., & Sirocko, F. (2000). The low-latitude monsoon climate during Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles and Heinrich Events. Quaternary Science Reviews, 19, 243-254.
62. Lewis, H. (2007). Preliminary soil micromorphology studies of landscape and occupation history at Tabon Cave, Palawan, Philippines. Geoarchaeology, 22, 685-708.
63. Lewis, H., Paz, V., Lara, M., Barton, H., Piper, P., Ochoa, J., Vitales, T., Carlos, J., Higham, T., Neri, L., Hernandez, V., Stevenson, J., Robles, E., Ragragio, A., Padilla, R., Solheim, W., II, & Ronquillo, W. (2008). Terminal Pleistocene to mid Holocene occupation and an early cremation burial at Ille Cave, Palawan, Philippines. Antiquity, 82, 318-335.
64. McBrearty, S. (1990) Consider the humble termite: Termites as agents of post-depositional disturbance at African archaeological sites. Journal of Archaeological Science, 17, 111-143.
65. Mellars, P. (2006). Going east: New genetic and archaeological perspectives on the modern human colo-nization of Eurasia. Science, 313, 796-800.
66. Mercader, J. (2002). Forest people: The role of African rainforests in human evolution and dispersal. Evolutionary Anthropology, 11, 117-124.
67. Mercader, J., Martí, R., González, I., Sánchez, A., & García, P. (2003). Archaeological site formation in rain forests: Insights from the Ituri rockshelters, Congo. Journal of Archaeological Science, 30, 45-65.
68. Moeyersons, J. (1997). Geomorphological processes and their palaeoenvironmental significance in the Shum Laka cave (Bamenda, western Cameroon). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 133, 103-116.
69. Oppenheimer, S. (2003) Out of Eden: The peopling of the world. London: Robinson.
70. Overpeck, J., Anderson, D., Trumbore, S., & Prell, W. (1996). The southwest Indian Monsoon over the last 18000 years. Climate Dynamics, 25, 213-225.
71. Perera, H.N. (in press). Prehistoric Sri Lanka: Late Pleistocene rockshelters and open-air site. Oxford: BAR International Series.
72. Pope, K.O., & Terrell, J.E. (2008). Environmental setting of human migrations in the circum-Pacific region. Journal of Biogeography, 35, 1-21.
73. Premathilake, R., & Risberg, J. (2003). Late Quaternary history of the Horton Plains, central Sri Lanka. Quaternary Science Reviews, 22, 1525-1541.
74. Sémah, F., Sémah, A.-M., Falguéres, C., Dètroit, F., Simanjuntak, T., Moigne, A.-M., Gallet, X., & Hameau, S. (2004). The significance of the Punung karstic area (Eastern Java) for the chronology of the Javanese Palaeolithic, with special reference to the Song Terus cave. Modern Quaternary Research in Southeast Asia, 19, 45-61.
75. Sergant, J., Crombé, P, & Perdaen, Y. (2006). The "invisible" hearths: A contribution to the discernment of Mesolithic non-structured surface hearths. Journal of Archaeological Science, 33, 999-1007.
76. Shahack-Gross, R., Berna, F., Karkanas, P., & Weiner, S. (2004). Bat guano and preservation of archaeo-logical remains in cave sites. Journal of Archaeological Science, 31, 1259-1272.
77. Simpson, I.A., Kourampas, N., & Perera, H.N. (2008). Bellan-Bandi Palasa, Sri Lanka: Formation processes of a Mesolithic open-air site identified through thin-section micromorphology. Archaeologia: Journal of Archaeology, 4, 3-18.
78. Stephens, M., Rose, J., Gilbertson, D., & Canti, M.G. (2005). Micromorphology of cave sediments in the humid tropics: Niah Cave, Sarawak. Asian Perspectives, 44, 42-55.
79. Stoops, G. (2003). Guidelines for analysis and description of soil and regolith thin sections. Madison, WI: Soil Science Society of America.
80. Stott, L., Poulsen, C., Lund, S., & Thunell, R. (2002). Super ENSO and global climate oscillations at millennial time scales. Science, 297, 222-226.
81. Thamban, M., Purnachandra Rao, V., & Schneider, R.R. (2002). Reconstruction of late Quaternary mon-soon oscillations based on clay mineral proxies using sediment cores from the western margin of India. Marine Geology, 186, 527-539.
82. Theocharopoulos, S.P., & Dalrymple, J.B. (1987). Experimental construction of illuviation cutans (channel argillans) with differing micromorphological and optical properties. In N. Fedoroff, L.M. Bresson, & M.A. Courty (Eds.), Micromorphologie des sols [Soil micromorphology] (pp. 245-250). Plaisir: AFES.
83. Thomas, M.F. (1994). Geomorphology in the tropics: A study of weathering and denudation in low latitudes. Chichester: Wiley.
84. Voris, H.K. (2000). Maps of Pleistocene sea levels in Southeast Asia: Shorelines, river systems and time durations. Journal of Biogeography, 27, 1153-1167.
85. Wang, Y.J., Cheng, H., Edwards, R.L., An, Z.S., Wu, J.Y., Shen, C.-C. and Dorale, J.A. (2001). A high-resolution absolute-dated late Pleistocene monsoon record from Hulu Cave, China. Science, 294, 2345-2348.
86. Ward, I.A.K., Fullagar, R.L.K., Boer-Mah, T., Head, L.M., Taçon, P.S.C., & Mulvaney, K. (2006). Comparison of sedimentation and occupation histories inside and outside rock shelters, Keep-River region, Northwestern Australia. Geoarchaeology, 21, 1-27.
87. Weiner, S., Goldberg, P., & Bar-Yosef, O. (1993). Bone preservation in Kebara Cave using on-site Fourier transform infrared spectrometry. Journal of Archaeological Science, 20, 613-627.
88. Wijeyapala, W.H. (1997). New light on the prehistory of Sri Lanka in the context of recent investigations of cave sites. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Peradiniya, Peradiniya.
89. Woodward, J. (1997a). Late Pleistocene rockshelter sedimentation at Klithi. In G. Bailey (Ed.), Klithi: Palaeolithic settlement and Quaternary landsapes in northwest Greece, Vol. 2 (pp. 361-376). Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
90. Woodward, J. (1997b). Late Pleistocene rockshelter sedimentation at Megalakkos. In G. Bailey (Ed.), Klithi: Palaeolithic settlement and Quaternary landsapes in northwest Greece, Vol. 2 (pp. 377-393). Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
91. Woodward, J.C., & Bailey, G.N. (2000). Sediment sources and terminal Pleistocene geomorphological processes recorded in rockshelter sequences in northwest Greece. In I.D.L. Foster (Ed.), Tracers in geomorphology (pp. 521-551). Chichester: Wiley.
92. Woodward, J.C., & Goldberg, P. (2001). The sedimentary records in Mediterranean rockshelters and caves: Archives of environmental change. Geoarchaeology, 16, 327-354.
93. Woodward, J.C., & Morley, M. (2008). The clastic sedimentary record in rockshelters and caves: Problems and prospects. 6th World Archaeology Conference, Dublin, p. 142.
94. Yuan, D., Cheng, H., Edwards, R.L., Dykoski, C.A., Kelly, M.J., Zhang, M., Qing, J., Lin, Y., Wang, Y., Wu, J., Doralle, J.A., An, Z., & Cai, Y. (2004). Timing, duration, and transitions of the Last Interglacial Asian Monsoon. Science, 304, 575-578.