All about rice and bananas
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A Lecture on ‘Primary steps towards civilization in Sri Lanka – through the origins of rice and banana agriculture’ by Dr. R. Premathilake, organized by the National Trust – Sri Lanka will be held at 6.30 p.m. on June 28 at the HNB Auditorium, 22nd Floor, HNB Towers, 479 T.B. Jayah Mawatha, Colombo 10.
In this 107th Session of the Monthly Lecture Series of the National Trust, the focus will be on our current state of knowledge about the beginnings of rice and banana cultivations and the spread of both crops inferred from archaeobotanical evidence (e.g. pollen, phytoliths, sediments and radiocarbon dating).
Domesticated rice as food and crop is central to the identities of many Asian societies; indeed most state cultures in the East, Southeast and South Asia e.g. the Japanese, Thai, Sinhalese and Tamils consider rice as part of their cultural traditions.
Rice farming is central to the civilizations of monsoon Asia (e.g. Sri Lanka, India, China), however, banana farming is central to the identities of Southeast and South Asian societies.
The importance of rice and banana ‘agriculture’ as a motor for demographic growth, population expansion and origins of sedentary village life has been highlighted by many biologists, archaeologists and anthropologists and forms a key component in the farming/climate and environmental changes/language dispersal hypothesis. However, there is little knowledge about the early appearance of agriculture in Sri Lanka due to lack of systematic studies.
Dr. Premathilake is the first Palaeoecologist of Sri Lanka and is involved in research and education in the lines of Quaternary Palaeoecology, Climate Change Science and Environmental Archaeology in South and Southeast Asia.
Presently Dr. Premathilake works as a Senior Lecturer in the Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology, University of Kelaniya.
The lectures of the National Trust are open to its members and the public at a nominal fee. For more information please call the Trust Office on Tel:
011-2682730/0778081214