Dental Anthropology Research Project on Anuradhapura Vedda III

These are some of the casts that are collected from the people of Anuradhapura vedda villages. Now we have a collection of around 200 pairs of maxillary and mandibular dentiton and we are certainly planning to increase the number at least upto 300 or 400 pairs.

These casts are stored in the department of Basic Sciences, Faculty of Dental Sciences, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. We are in the process of investigating these plaster casts and collecting data. The preliminary results of this project will be presented at the 2012 Inter-Congress of International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) on "Children and Youth in a Changing World". The congress will be held at KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, India, during 26th to 30th November 2012. The Inter-congress shall be organized jointly by IUAES Commission on Children, Youth and Childhood and Centre for Children Studies, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), KIIT University.

Dental Anthropology Research Project on Anuradhapura Vedda II

We have so far visited about six viilages in Medawacchi division in Anuradhapura district namely, Diviyaudabendawewa, Kukulewa, Wanni-palugollewa, Kalawelpothana, Koppetiyawa and Pandiggama. We have done the field visits four times with final visit beign 11th and 12th May 2012 to cover the above mentioned villages.

We have taken impressions of upper and lower dental arches of around 200 individuals and made plaster casts from them. These casts are stored in the department of Basic Sciences, Faculty of Dental Sciences, University of Perdeniya, Sri Lanka. We are very careful to select individuals who have the complete dention and minimal damage in their teeth with caries, attrirtion, abbrasion, etc.

In carrying out this work, we have to face many difficulties due to minimal facilities avalable in these villages. Hope this is evident by the photographs that we have published in this blog. However, we did our best to collect the impressions giving maximum care to those individuals who participated in the project.

We are palnning to continue the colection of dental cast and increase our sample size bt visiting some more villages in the future.

Dental Anthropological Research Project on Anuradhapura Vedda I

The physical anthropology reserch group of the Faculty of Dental Sciences, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka is currently conducting a research project in Anuradhapura districi, north central province of Sri Lanka. The sample population is a aboriginal vedda population in Anurdhapura district, commonly known as "Anurdhapura vedda" or "Vanni Sinhalayo".

We investigate the metric and non metric characteristics of the dentition and try to figure out the origin of these people, their pattern of migration and afinities to the other contemporary, historic and prehistoric world populations. This study will lead to the Mphil degree of Dr. J. A. Jayaweera of district hospital, Chilaw, Sri Lanka.

 
We visited the villages and took the information from the poeple like their three generation pedegree, language, religion, rituals, etc. before start collecting the impressions and casts of their dentition. They treated us very well and their hospitatlity was very impressive.

University of Peradeniya I - My work place

This is the view you can see when you look from the main administrative building the Senate. It is full of greenery and this view is quite different during April every year with trees getting full of flowers of University colour; the maroon, yellow and pink.

This is Professor Ediriweera Sarathchandra open air theater. It is also known as "Wala". When some event is performing on this theater all the university students can gather this memorable place together, as it is very large to seat over eight thousand people. My University is really a beautiful place to visit and these are only two of those beautiful places. I will bring to you more in the future.

32nd Asia Pacific Dental Congress 2010 - Colombo, Sri Lanka

32nd Asia Pacific Dental Congress (APDC) was held in Colombo from 12th to 16th of May 2010. There were many participants from south and east Asian countries at the congress. There were several guest speakers from Europe, America and Australia joined the event to make it a success as well. There was a dental trade fair which was joined by many companies. However, Indians were dominated the event by presenting many research papers, conducting work shops and participating at the trade fair.

I also presented a poster titled "Non metric tooth crown traits in a Sri Lankan aboriginal Vedda population: Comparison with other world populations". I am very glad to say that it was awarded as the best poster of the 32nd APDC 2010.

Several tours, golf tournaments, etc had been organized by the organizing committee especially for foreign participants. However, these events might have been affected by the heavy rain that we are experiencing these days in Colombo and other parts of the country.

Carrier Guidance programme 2009 for the passing out Dental Students of the Faculty of Dental Sciences

Last week we had the carrier guidance programme for the passing out dental students of the Faculty of Dental Sciences, University of Peradeniya.This is an annual event of our Faculty and this year I myself supposed to be the chairmen of the organizing committee of the event. The main purpose of this event is to guide the passing out dental students and to make them aware the opportunities available in the field of dentistry in Sri Lanka as well as in other countries. Then they have a very good chance of choosing the best option which is most suitable for them for their future carrier in the field of dentistry. We had some very fruitful lectures of different aspects of dentistry like research,private practice, government dental health service, dentistry in armed forces, etc. We also had a trade exhibition. Therefore, students and other dental doctors had a good opportunity to check out the modern techniques and materials available in the market for very competitive prices. As a whole the event was a success and students might have fully benefited.

Bible Rock

“Batalegala Kanda” or commonly known as bible rock is situated in Kandy and visible as you reach a area called Kadugannawa. It can be seen, shrouded in thick jungle from time immemorial. It has been named as bible rock by British rulers at that time when Sri Lanka was ruled by them probably because of its shape. It is rectangular in shape as you see in the picture and they might have seen that like a book or bible for that matter. However, today it is being transformed into a Buddhist place of worship. To the traveler proceeding from Colombo to Kandy, the magnificent spectacle of the rock stands as a collosurs dwarfing the surrounding landscape.