Middle and Late Stone Age of the Niassa region, northern Mozambique. Preliminary results

Abstract

Located between modern-day South Africa and Tanzania, both of which have well-known and extensive Stone Age records, Mozambique's Stone Age sequence remains largely unknown in the broader context of African Pleistocene prehistory. Such lack of data occurs despite the key geographical location of the country, in southern Africa at the southeastern tip of the Great Rift Valley. As such, Mozambique is an area of interest to evaluate the origins and dispersion of Homo sapiens within Africa, particularly in relation to Middle Stone Age contexts and associated early modern human ecology and cognition.This paper focuses on preliminary survey results from the Niassa District, near Lake Niassa (also known as Lake Malawi) in northern Mozambique. The results include the discovery and location of more than 80 new surface lithic concentration localities, as well as data from two new sites, the open air surface site of Ncuala and the rock shelter of Chicaza. For Chicaza we provide a series of new radiocarbon dates for the Iron Age and Late Stone Age occupations based on preliminary testing carried out at the site.