Macquarie University http://www.mq.edu.au/ “Visions of an Island” is an autobiographical account of Sir Christopher Ondaatje’ romance with Sri Lanka drawing on several of his books. Sir Christopher is writer in residence from 28 March till 14 April 2011, he was born in Ceylon, educated in London and immigrated to Canada in 1956. He has worked […]

Courtesy Adaderana At a jungle-covered cave site in southwestern Sri Lanka, archaeologists have found a remarkable collection of ancient objects, including tools that they believe are among the oldest survival gear humans used in rainforests. The artifacts range in age from 48,000 to 4,000 years old and include 130 bone arrow tips—the oldest arrow tips […]

iflscience.com The earliest human inhabitants of Asia’s tropical rainforests were packing some serious heat, according to a new study in the journal Science Advances, which describes the discovery of 130 arrowheads dating back 48,000 years. Found in a cave in Sri Lanka, the bone projectiles are the oldest weapons of their kind to be found outside […]

Courtesy theconversation.com/ Archaeological excavations deep within the rainforests of Sri Lanka have unearthed the earliest evidence for hunting with bows and arrows outside Africa. At Fa-Hien Lena, a cave in the heart of Sri Lanka’s wet zone forests, we discovered numerous tools made of stone, bone, and tooth – including a number of small arrow points carved […]

By Sasanka Perera & Dev Nath Pathak Courtesy NewsIn.Asia The multi-lingual broadcasts over Radio Ceylon culturally united communities divided into nation states after decolonization. New Delhi, May 6 (newsin.asia): Radio, in our view is not merely a matter of technology through which music, entertainment, information, news and increasingly fake news and many other forms of […]

By P.K.Balachandran Courtesy NewsIn.Asia In the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, 20,000 perished in Sri Lanka, 20 million in India and 50 to 100 million, the world over Colombo, April 17 (SAM): Exactly a 100 year ago, Sri Lanka had the experience of going through a horrendous pandemic the Spanish flu or influenza, which claimed nearly 20,000 […]

Malwatuoyasoya Media A Journey to the Heart of Civilization of Lanka Dedicated to the Children of the Irrigation Civilization https://youtu.be/bv8cCI_lLuw

By Mahendra (Speedy) Gonsalkorale. January 2019 Courtesy colombomedgrads1962.blogspot.com A Historical perspective of people who influenced it and of culture related to the song(I don’t claim this to be a scholarly treatise; it is based chiefly on internet resources)I discuss this subject in paragraphs and indicate the main subject in the sub-heading. You will see a […]

Professor Anthony Costello courtesy The Guadian (UK) Anthony Costello is professor of global health and sustainable development at University College London Data from east Asia shows testing, tracing and isolating people with coronavirus is the best way to tackle the pandemic When will the pandemic end? The future is uncertain, but it seems likely that […]

Centre for Indic Studies

Oshan Wedage, Patrick Roberts, Patrick Faulkner, Alison Crowther, Katerina Douka, Andrea Picin, James Blinkhorn, Siran Deraniyagala, Nicole Boivin, Michael Petraglia, Noel Amano courtesy MAX-PLANCK Institute for the Science of Human History Abstract Sri Lanka has produced the earliest clear evidence for Homo sapiens fossils in South Asia and research in the region has provided important insights into […]

Grammar Productions When British soldiers conquered Burma in 1885, they gave the last king hours to pack. Many of his treasures – heirlooms from a millennium of monarchy- were seized and sent to Britain. But the most precious, an enormous ruby, disappeared. Who took it, and where is it now? Read the full story here […]

By P.K.Balachandran/Daily Express Today, the Tamil-speaking Jaffna peninsula is a bastion of orthodox Saivism – a Hindu sect based on the worship of Lord Siva. But according to Prof. Tikiri Abeysinghe, in the 16th and the 17th centuries, under Portuguese sway, the peninsula was entirely Catholic, though only nominally so. In Jaffna under the Portuguese”, […]

Some of this information was obtained from a book titled Colonial Kollupitiya and its environs by H.M.M. Herath. There was a time when Kollupitiya was known as Baradeniya. It was a beautiful rustic village with coconut  gardens and cinnamon trees that grew wild and narrow cart-tracks which connected the few villas and homes here with […]

Colonial history Courtesy Scroll.IN A group of Indian and American researches simulated soil moisture content during major Indian famines to come to the conclusion. The 1943 Bengali famine was caused by then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s policies and not drought, a group of Indian and American researchers have found in a study published in the […]

Courtesy The Daily Mirror November 26 marks the day when Maha Adikaram Keppetipola and Maha Nilame of the Uva Madugalle were executed on the banks of Bogambara Wewa on the orders of the British Governor. It was left to Dr Henry Marshall, a friend of Maha Adikaram Keppetipola to take away the head of Keppetipola […]

By Gary Brecher You see some pretty sick stuff when you do my job, but I just read something sicker than any Congo cannibal buffet.   It’s an article by a posh little Limey named Jeremy Brown condemning the Sri Lankan Government for being too messy in putting down the LTTE, and demanding that we stop […]

By Nikhil Sonnad/The Quartz Courtesy NewsIn.Asia With a few minor exceptions, there are really only two ways to say tea” in the world. One is like the English term—té in Spanish and tee in Afrikaans are two examples. The other is some variation of cha, like chay in Hindi. Both versions come from China. How […]

Courtesy BBC The skulls of nine members of a Sri Lankan tribe have been returned to their descendents by the University of Edinburgh. Experts say the bones are the ancestral remains of the Vedda people and may be more than 200 years old. They have been part of the university’s anatomical collection since being acquired […]

Courtesy Adaderana The skulls of nine members of a Sri Lankan tribe have been returned to their descendents by the University of Edinburgh. Experts say the bones are the ancestral remains of the Vedda people and may be more than 200 years old. They have been part of the university’s anatomical collection since being acquired […]

Sripali Vaiamon  But it also tried to establish SINHALESE were descendants of a lion and a woman. How far we can believe that !Let that be there but let us address everyone living in Sri Lanka as SRILANKAN, besides their ethnic names. This could be implemented after the election of the new PRESIIDENT on the […]

Written by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne Courtesy The Indian Express The mists of mythology, history and conspiracy theories render him elusive. Yet, in Sri Lanka, the search for Ravana remains a quest for validation. A few months ago, I was picking my way through an obscure 1870s translation of the great Ramayana, notebook in one hand and […]

Courtesy The Daily Mirror Archaeological officers in Vavuniya have complained to the Omanthai police in October to carry out an inquiry about the building of a Kovil in the Maligai area in Omanthai, in Vavuniya by a certain group of people by bulldozing a place with archaeological memorials and ruins that belonged to Anuradhapura period. […]

Courtesy Adaderana Several stone weapons used by prehistoric man have been found in the area nearby Panikkan Kulam in Mankulam, Mullaitivu, says Professor Paramu Pushparatnam. Speaking to Ada Derana reporter, Prof. Pushparatnam stated that he had inspected the area after he was notified by the residents that artefacts belonging to the prehistoric times exist there. […]

Dr.Sripali Vaiamon  Canada But it also tried to establish SINHALESE were descendants of a lion and a woman. How far we can believe that! Let that be there but let us address everyone living in Sri Lanka AS SRILANKAN, after the election of the new President What a fascinating apology.  Rev. Mahanama of the Deegasanda […]

by Max Planck Society Courtesy phys.org Microliths—small stone tools—are often interpreted as being part of composite tools, including projectile weapons, and essential to efficient hunting strategies of Homo sapiens. In Europe and Africa, the earliest appearance of these lithic toolkits are linked to hunting medium and large-sized animals in grassland or woodland settings, or as adaptations to […]

By IAN RANDALL FOR MAILONLINE Archaeologists studied tiny, worked stone tools found in the Fa-Hein Lena Cave They believe they were made during the production of projectiles like spears Ancient humans likely used them to hunt tree-dwelling animals like monkeys These early tools overturn the idea that rainforests impeded humanity’s spread PUBLISHED: 19:00, 2 October 2019 | UPDATED: 19:00, 2 October […]

BY S VENKAT NARAYAN, Courtesy The Island NEW DELHI, September 7: A newly published archaeological study based on DNA analysis of skeletal remains at the Rakhigarhi site in Haryana in north India has claimed that inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) were a distinct indigenous people, and challenges the theory of an “Aryan invasion” ending […]

Courtesy News18 Civil Aviation Authority vice-chairman Shashi Danatunge said they had irrefutable facts to prove that Ravana was the pioneer and the first to fly using an aircraft. Bengaluru: The Sri Lankan government believes that King Ravana was the first aviator in the world and flew over 5,000 years ago and the country’s Civil Aviation Authority […]

Martin Brech Courtesy  The INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW In October 1944, at age eighteen, I was drafted into the U.S. army. Largely because of the “Battle of the Bulge,” my training was cut short, my furlough was halved, and I was sent overseas immediately. Upon arrival in Le Havre, France, we were quickly loaded into […]