Seven Years in Sihagiri Bim - An Account of a Sri Lankan-Swedish Collaboration in Settlement Archaeology in Sigiriya 1988—1995

Abstract

During the course of seven years Sri Lankan and Swedish archaeologists in collaboration built up a core of what is today the Sri Lankan settlement archaeology. Through surveys, excavations and ethnoarchaeological studies an understanding was gradually obtained regarding settlements and subsistence strategies of the Sri Lankan dry zone, from the Mesolithic to the present, and a generation of young Sri Lankan archaeologists got a fair amount of necessary field training. The primary objective was to develop the human resources of Sri Lankan archaeology, but something can also be said about the research results of the project. This article gives a generalised background and, in very brief outline, an overview of the work done, its methodology, constraints and results.