Revisiting the Godavaya Mid-Holocene Coastal Hunter-Gatherer-Fisher Camp Site in Southeastern Sri Lanka

Abstract

Archaeological evidence suggests that middle Holocene hunter-gatherer-fisher (HGF) populations set up camps on coastal shell ridges of Sri Lanka. From the middle to late Holocene, coastal areas were subjected to several localized episodes of marine transgression and regression due to sea level oscillation. During highstands the Godavaya hill in southeastern Sri Lanka was a coastal headland jutting into the Indian Ocean between two submerged coastal embayments. We present an analysis of data collected from the rescue excavation conducted in 2014 at the Godavaya mid-Holocene coastal HGF camp site, including supporting information from surveys conducted on the surrounding coastal landscape.  Through studying the stratigraphy of the profile walls of the gravel pits adjacent to the Godavaya hill, we summarize the geological process associated with site formation, contextualizing the prehistoric cultural phases. The analysis of  the lithic and faunal remains recovered from the Godavaya midden refuse, provide insights to middle Holocene coastal adaptations that suggest the existence of multiple sub-ecosystems abundant in aquatic resources. This abundance may have been a key pull-factor that attracted HGF groups to aggregate along the shorelines during the sea-level highstands allowing a relatively higher density of occupation, as evidenced by numerous encampments along former bay beaches. Based on the presence of previously excavated human burials at Godavaya hill, similar to the burials found at interior shell ridge habitations, and support from ethnographic analogy, we propose that inhumation of the dead may have created an ancestral link to the locality, forming a sense of territorial right and ownership