Early Iron Age
A large settlement appears to have been founded before 900 BC at the site of Anuradhapura where signs of an Iron Age culture have been found. The size of the settlement was about 15 hectares at that date, but it expanded to 50 ha, to 'town' size within a couple of centuries. A similar site has been discovered at Aligala in Sigiriya.
The earliest chronicles the Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa say that the island was inhabited by tribes of Yakkhas (demons), Nagas (cobras) and devas (gods). These may refer to totemist Iron Age autochthones.
Pottery dating back to 600 BC has been found at Anuradhapura, bearing Brāhmī script (among the earliest extant examples of the script) and non-Brahmi writing, which may have arisen through contact with Semitic trading scripts from West Asia.
The emergence of new forms of pottery at the same time as the writing, together with other artifacts such as red glass beads, indicate a new cultural impulse, possibly an invasion from North India. The Brahmi writing appears to be in Indo-Aryan Prakrit and is almost identical to the Asokan script some 200 years later); none appears to be in Dravidian - corroborating the view that Indo-Aryan was pre-dominant from at least as early as 500 BC in Sri Lanka. Following ancient ethnic groups are attested from the ancient cave inscriptions found from different regions of Sri Lanka.
Read more about this topic: Prehistory Of Sri Lanka
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