Although we are unable to identify an overlap between these hunter-gatherers and the first iron-using populations, a new cultural complex characterized by the use of megalithic cist burials, black and red ware ceramics and the use of iron, spread across the island at the beginning of the first millennium BC. Paralleling a similar technological and cultural development in peninsula India, the lack of a Neolithic or Chalcolithic phase in Sri Lanka has tempted some to suggest a demic diffusion from the south of India to the island. However, to date there is no physical evidence of such a movement and it remains supposition.
The focus of Iron Age research has been primarily on locating its cist burials and megalithic cemeteries, which are found throughout the dry zone. Settlement and subsistence data is limited to Coningham’s excavations at Anuradhapura, which show continuity from the beginning of the first millennium BC (c. 840-460 BC) through to the Medieval period. Reflected in the substitution of small temporary shelters by larger, more substantial, circular poststructures, the population of Anuradhapura increases through the Iron Age as the settlement reaches a size of 28 ha and island-wide trade networks are augmented by links across South Asia as a whole. Unfortunately, few of the island’s Iron Age cemeteries have been published with only preliminary reports from Ibban-katuva and Pomparipu, restricting our knowledge of social differentiation and ranking (Figure 2).
World History
