Belilena - prehistoric cave near Kitulgala
Belilena, located 6 km east of Kitulgala and reachable via a plantation road, is a group of large rock shelters, one of them is a picturesque water curtain cave. Belilena is one the three major finding places of the Balangoda culture. Over 16,000 years old skeletal remains of Balangoda man were discovered by Sri Lanka’s renowned paleontologist Siran Upendra Deraniyagala in Belilena. More recently, microlithic tools dating back more than 40 millennia have been excavated here.
Visiting Belilena
For visitors of Kitulgala, which is most famous for river rafting, Belilena is a worthwhile excursion destination for four reasons. Firstly it is a natural cave, secondly with a beautiful view of the mountain valley near Kitulgala, thirdly it’s a waterfall and fourthly a prehistoric site.
If you leave Kitulgala on the A7 in an easterly direction, after a few kilometers you have to turn left behind a small bridge. Belilena is signposted. The track winds around seven kilometers through rubber plantations of Inoya estate and is no longer passable in the upper area. You have to walk the last kilometer on foot.
The cave is easy to find in the extension of the dirt road. The last section is a well-developed step path. The cave is about 650 m (2000 feet) above sea level.
The stairway ends in front of the rock face at an unusually deep rock shelter. You can see the waterfall at the southern end of the cliff.
If you look up the rock, from which some water is always dripping, you can see some large insect burrows high up on overhangs. Don’t disturb insects by too loud noise, it could provoke them to attack, which is highly dangerous.
If you leave Kitulgala on the A7 in an easterly direction, after a few kilometers you have to turn left behind a small bridge. Belilena is signposted. The track winds around seven kilometers through rubber plantations of Inoya estate and is no longer passable in the upper area. You have to walk the last kilometer on foot.
The cave is easy to find in the extension of the dirt road. The last section is a well-developed step path. The cave is about 650 m (2000 feet) above sea level.
The stairway ends in front of the rock face at an unusually deep rock shelter. You can see the waterfall at the southern end of the cliff.
If you look up the rock, from which some water is always dripping, you can see some large insect burrows high up on overhangs. Don’t disturb insects by too loud noise, it could provoke them to attack, which is highly dangerous.
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The space under the rock overhang is actually so large that the term “cave”, used in Sri Lanka mostly for rock shelter, doesn’t seem like an exaggeration in this case.
The walls inside the cave are not the remains of former use as a Buddhist hermitage, but rather retaining walls from more recent times to secure the excavation sections.
"Belilena is sometimes spelled "Beli Lena". "Beli" is the Sinhala name of the Bael fruit (Aegle marmelos), also known as Bengal quince. "Lena" simply translates to "cave".
The walls inside the cave are not the remains of former use as a Buddhist hermitage, but rather retaining walls from more recent times to secure the excavation sections.
"Belilena is sometimes spelled "Beli Lena". "Beli" is the Sinhala name of the Bael fruit (Aegle marmelos), also known as Bengal quince. "Lena" simply translates to "cave".
Prehistoric Cave of Belilena
Belilena is one of Sri Lanka's three large caves in which prehistoric human bones and artifacts were excavated, in particular skeletons of the so-called Balangoda man, but also tools from much earlier millennia. Belilena is one of the most important finding places of Stone Age artifacts in South Asia.
The Archaeological Department of Sri Lanka examined Belilena between 1978 and 1983 under the guidence of S.U. Deraniyagala (1942-2021), Sri Lanka’s most renowned anthropologist in recent decades, son of the pioneering anthropologist P.E.P. Deraniyagala.
The rich excavation finds were dated with great care. Twentyfive C14 measurements alone were carried out and, unlike in most other cases of archaeological excavations, they were partly verified by thermoluminescence measurements. It was determined that Deraniyagala’s finds are between 30,000 and 9,000 years old.
The 30,000-year-old objects unearthed in Deraniyagala's campaign include geometric microlitic stone tools. These are blades and drill bits that are only up to 4 cm long that were used as arrowheads and for refined tools. This discovery in Belilena was almost sensational. Until then, microliths were considered a kind of index fossil of a transitional period with refined hunting and fishing methods before the Neolithic Revolution. In the European context, this period is called the Mesolithic, i.e. “Middle Stone Age” and dates back to around 10,000 years ago.
The Archaeological Department of Sri Lanka examined Belilena between 1978 and 1983 under the guidence of S.U. Deraniyagala (1942-2021), Sri Lanka’s most renowned anthropologist in recent decades, son of the pioneering anthropologist P.E.P. Deraniyagala.
The rich excavation finds were dated with great care. Twentyfive C14 measurements alone were carried out and, unlike in most other cases of archaeological excavations, they were partly verified by thermoluminescence measurements. It was determined that Deraniyagala’s finds are between 30,000 and 9,000 years old.
The 30,000-year-old objects unearthed in Deraniyagala's campaign include geometric microlitic stone tools. These are blades and drill bits that are only up to 4 cm long that were used as arrowheads and for refined tools. This discovery in Belilena was almost sensational. Until then, microliths were considered a kind of index fossil of a transitional period with refined hunting and fishing methods before the Neolithic Revolution. In the European context, this period is called the Mesolithic, i.e. “Middle Stone Age” and dates back to around 10,000 years ago.
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The oldest microlithic tools in Europe are around 12,000 years old, those found by Deraniyagala’s campaign in Belilena are 18,000 years older, and more recently found microliths in Belilena are even older than that and among the earliest known in Asia, almost as old as those found in Dhaba in the Middle Son Valley of north-central India, which are around 48,000 years or maybe even more than 50,000 years old. Growing archaeological evidence has documented the use of microliths in the context of tropical rainforest resources in several more locations in South Asia, South East Asia, and Melanesia between 45,000 and 36,000 years ago. This came as a surprise, because rainforests were considered a barrier for cultural development. Now it has turned out, that the challenge of a more difficult environment led to the response of refining tools.
However, the interpretation of reaching a „higher step of civilization“ would go too far, as the Eurpean Mesolithic period that is characterized by extensive use of microliths was actually a period of decline in population, a time of crises that required adaptations. The reason for the backsliding at the turn from the palaeolithic to the mesolithic era was the end of the ice age after 12,700 BC, which led to a dramatic decline of big game in central Europe and as a result to cultural regression. Not only the population shrunk, but also the European period of highly developed cultures such as Magdalénien and Badegoulien in the west and Epigravettien in the east came to an end. Their larger settlements and much-admired art of elaborate paintings and sculptures ceased to exist and the tool production technologies of the dawning mesolithic period became less refined and also less standardised than in the preceeding palaeolithic period. In this sense, the turn to microliths was a step backwards in the process of civilisation in the case of central Europe, not at all a "progress in civilization". Adaptation to a rainforest environment in tropical Asia required similar technological responses as those to a forest cover that, much later on, replaced the grassland savannahs in central Europe due to climatic change. Microliths are forest tools, so to speak, indicating a type of environment more than a stage or degree of civilization. As said, in the case of Europe the earlier larger stone tools of the palaeolithic period were of higher technological quality than the microlithic tools from the succeding mesolithic period.
The oldest microliths were found in Africa and are almost 100,000 years old. Nevertheless, the findings in the Belilena (and in Pahiyangala and Batadomba Lena) are record-breaking, as they are among the world's oldest specimens of further refined so-called geometric microliths. Various typical shapes of this specific kind of microlith, such as triangles and trapezoids, were found in the Belilena cave. They were not only used for hunting, but also for processing everyday objects. Insofar they mark a notable progress in civilisational techniques indeed. For comparison, the oldest geometric microliths in Africa were found in Zaire and South Africa; they are younger than those earliest from Sri Lanka and India. Unlike the artifacts of this type produced in Europe millennia later on, most of the microliths in Sri Lanka are not made of flint, but of quartz.
Many different animal species have been documented as human food in the cave of Belilena. Bone tools and traces of the use of fire for their processing were also found.
Even trade or some form of far-distance exchange of goods was already taking place, because salt from the coast 80 km away was also found in Belilena.
The oldest human skeletons found in Belilena come from the 16,000-year-old archaeological layer. They are attributed to the so-called Balangoda man, which is not a “prehistoric man” but rather a “modern” Homo sapiens. The Balangoda man is sometimes considered a regional subspecies, but this is controversial. In any case, the Balangoda culture was the native civilisation of Sri Lanka, before the immigration of new settlers from southern India and finally the Sinhalese from northern India in the first millennium BC took place. Sometimes the present-day Weddas are considered to be descendants of those prehistoric Balangoda people. The oldest bone finds of Balangoda people are 37,000 years old and come from the Faxian Lena cave (Pahiyangala), 31,000 year old skeletal bones were found in the Batadomba cave in Kuruwita, 60 km southwest of Belilena.
The 16,000-year-old excavation layer in Belilena is remarkable for another reason. Foundations of quarry stone walls were found. This makes the expansion of the Belilena caves the oldest known stone buildings in the entire South Asian region.
Incidentally, all of these finds come from a time when there was probably - for the last time - a land connection with the Indian peninsula, which existed again and again when sea levels were slightly lower, especially during the ice ages. So the Balangoda man was not an islander, not isolated from the Indian peninsula.
Today's visitor, of course, cannot see any of these sensational finds on site. Instead, you notice new shrines that make Belilena a small sanctuary.
Many different animal species have been documented as human food in the cave of Belilena. Bone tools and traces of the use of fire for their processing were also found.
Even trade or some form of far-distance exchange of goods was already taking place, because salt from the coast 80 km away was also found in Belilena.
The oldest human skeletons found in Belilena come from the 16,000-year-old archaeological layer. They are attributed to the so-called Balangoda man, which is not a “prehistoric man” but rather a “modern” Homo sapiens. The Balangoda man is sometimes considered a regional subspecies, but this is controversial. In any case, the Balangoda culture was the native civilisation of Sri Lanka, before the immigration of new settlers from southern India and finally the Sinhalese from northern India in the first millennium BC took place. Sometimes the present-day Weddas are considered to be descendants of those prehistoric Balangoda people. The oldest bone finds of Balangoda people are 37,000 years old and come from the Faxian Lena cave (Pahiyangala), 31,000 year old skeletal bones were found in the Batadomba cave in Kuruwita, 60 km southwest of Belilena.
The 16,000-year-old excavation layer in Belilena is remarkable for another reason. Foundations of quarry stone walls were found. This makes the expansion of the Belilena caves the oldest known stone buildings in the entire South Asian region.
Incidentally, all of these finds come from a time when there was probably - for the last time - a land connection with the Indian peninsula, which existed again and again when sea levels were slightly lower, especially during the ice ages. So the Balangoda man was not an islander, not isolated from the Indian peninsula.
Today's visitor, of course, cannot see any of these sensational finds on site. Instead, you notice new shrines that make Belilena a small sanctuary.
Waterfall of Belilena
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The most exciting thing for today's touristic visitor is an even deeper water curtain cave, hidden behind the waterfall. It can only be reached through a passage under the spray. However, it's worth getting wet a bit, as this cave is the most romantic in Belilena and most closely resembles the image we have of a cave.
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This deep cave with a waterfall directly in front of the cave opening is the main reason why Belilena is a rewarding destination also for non-archaeologists. Nature lovers will also appreciate the rich birdlife of this region.
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You can also walk along the foot of the rocky cliff on the opposite side to another small cave.
Local children often accompany the guests to the caves, of course with the motive of receiving a tip. But they haven't been spoiled by too much by tourism. The children are Tamils and their parents work on the rubber plantations in the area Inoya and Belilena. Unlike many highland Tamils of the tea plantations, the Tamils in the Kitulgala area also speak Sinhalese. |
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