Kalambo Falls, Zambia
T
he archaeological site of Kalambo Falls is located in northern Zambia, a few hundred metres upstream of the Falls themselves, on the banks of the Kalambo River that today forms the border between Zambia and Tanzania. The site was discovered in 1953 and extensively excavated by J. Desmond Clark and his team between 1956 and 1966. It has become famous for its rich archaeological material attributed to the Early and Middle Stone Age, and the preservation of wood remains in waterlogged deposits. The local geology comprises sandstones, quartzite, silicified mudstone, and dolerite that were variably exploited by early toolmakers.
The site is under renewed excavations, luminescence dating, and geomorphological, sedimentological, and palaeoenvironmental analyses since 2006 by Larry Barham of the University of Liverpool (UK) and his multidisciplinary team. This work has involved opening new excavation trenches north of Clark’s Site C in 2006 and west of Site B in 2019. These efforts have shed new light on the chronostratigraphy at Kalambo Falls and enabled the reconstruction of the complex site formation processes driven by lateral and vertical movement and seasonal flow variability of the meandering Kalambo River within its floodplain. The net aggradation of the river until the late Holocene has favoured the preservation of the archaeological remains in stratigraphic order, which makes the site a promising candidate for the study of technological strategies of the Early and Middle Stone Age.
Use-wear and residue analyses of lithics from the 2019 excavation at the site are carried out by several members of TraceoLab in the framework of the project Deep Roots of Human Behaviour.
The same project involves fieldwork at two other key locations, Victoria Falls and the Luangwa Valley.
Further reading
- Barham L., Tooth S., Duller G.A.T., Plater A.J. & Turner S., 2015 – Excavations at Site C North, Kalambo Falls, Zambia: new insights into the mode 2/3 transition in South-Central Africa. Journal of African Archaeology 13: 187-214
- Clark J.D., 1969 – Kalambo Falls Prehistoric Site, Volume I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Clark J.D., 1974 – Kalambo Falls Prehistoric Site, Volume II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Clark J.D., 2001 – Kalambo Falls Prehistoric Site, Volume III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Duller G.A.T., Tooth S., Barham L. & Tsukamoto S., 2015 – New investigations at Kalambo Falls, Zambia: luminescence chronology, site formation, and archaeological significance. Journal of Human Evolution 85: 111-125
- Sheppard P.J. & Kleindienst M.R., 1996 – Technological change in the Earlier and Middle Stone Age of Kalambo Falls (Zambia). African Archaeological Review 13: 171-196
