[1] Nonetheless, the site is of archaeological significance as Late Pleistocene human fossilized skeletal remains were discovered in the cave's sediments during excavations in the 1960s, the 1980s and in 2013.

In 1968 human burial sites were uncovered inside the cave by Siran Upendra Deraniyagala of the Sri Lankan Government Department of Archaeology, who undertook a second excavation campaign with assistant W. H. Wijepala in 1988.

The discoveries allowed archaeological and paleontological comparative studies as the earliest occupants of Fa Hien, or Pahiyangala Cave lived during the same period as European Cro-Magnon man and other Late Pleistocene hominids in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Studies of teeth found in the cave indicate that the prehistoric population of Sri Lanka processed food by grinding nuts, seeds and grains in stone querns and that they continued to maintain a hunter-gatherer lifestyle until about the 8th century BCE.

[3] In June 2020 research carried out by the Max Planck Institute, Griffith University in Australia, and the Sri Lankan Government Department of Archaeology, showed that occupants of the Fa-Hien Lena cave had developed bow and arrow technology 48,000 BP.