Director General of the Archaeological Department Senarath Dissanayaka told Xinhua that the skeleton of the Balangoda human ancestor found in the underground Fa-Hien cave in western Sri Lanka is to be sent for carbon dating to the Unites States

Aunty with the last of her elephants, Kandy “The evidence so far found has proved that the skeleton belongs to 37,000 years ago,” Dissanayake said.

“We also have invited a team of British experts to come down to Sri Lanka to examine the skeleton,” he said.

With the excavation, more evidence was found about the ‘ Balangoda man’ including his food items, rituals and also the stone tool he made.

Sri Lankan archeologists also have found some ornaments made of beads and weapons made of animal bone.

This is the first time that a full human skeleton as old as this has been found, the Archeological Department said.

The excavation of the cave, named after the Chinese Buddhist monk Fa-Hien, who said to have traveled to Sri Lanka between 399 and 412 to ac𝚚uire Buddhist scriptures had been carried out after Pleistocene human skeletal remains discovered from the site in 1986.

The cave has contained some earliest evidence of anatomically modern humans in South Asia. The excavations at the cave in Bulathsinhala, 60 km away from capital Colombo confirmed that Homo sapiens had settled in Sri Lanka 40,000 years ago.