evidence: The rarely visited archaeological site of Pahiyangala in Ratnapura District is worth mentioning for two very different reasons. Firstly, the huge semi-cave is one of the most important excavation sites in South Asia. Remnants of prehistoric human settlers of Sri Lanka’s Balangoda culture have been found in the Pahiyangala abri. Pahiyangala is the finding place of the oldest complete skeleton of a modern Homo sapiens in all of South Asia, around 37,000 years old according to radiovarbon dating. The rock shelter of had been inhabited already about 45,000 years ago. From that period geometric microliths were found which are among the earliest known outside Africa. Secondly, Pahiyangala is believed to have been an abode of the famous Chinese pilgrim Faxian, a Buddhist monk, who visited Sri Lanka in the early 5th century. Actually, Pahiyangala is better known as "Faxian-Lena" or "Fa Hien Lena", named after the famous Chinese Indian pilgrim Faxian, who in the early 5th century on his journey to India also traveled to Sri Lanka for his Buddhist studies. [...] Pahiyangala, like almost all of the so-called "caves" (Lena) in Sri Lanka, is less of a closed underground space and more a rock shelter, a protected space under an overhanging rock, possibly with a small passage into the mountain that looks more like an elongated niche or a narrow, short tunnel. All over the world, rock shelters are often sites of findings of prehistoric relics. Archaeologists often use the term „abri" for such rock shelters. This term is less misleading than "cave."