Sri Lankan Prehistoric Cave Paintings

Sri Lanka's prehistoric record - sites associated with early human habitation such as the caves in the island's south-central hill country - is part of introducing where art itself begins: marks made for record-keeping, ritual or storytelling long before anything resembling a written language existed.

For this age group the point of the lesson is less about specific images and more about the idea that image-making is one of humanity's oldest activities, older than the built temples and statues studied later in the syllabus - a useful anchor to return to when Grade 12 and 13 cover much later art movements.