Afr Archaeol Rev (2016) 33:112
DOI 10.1007/s10437-016-9212-4
REVIEW ARTICLE
Mapping the Stone Age of Mozambique
Clia Gonalves & Mussa Raja & Omar Madime &
Joo Cascalheira & Jonathan Haws & Daniela Matos &
Nuno Bicho
Published online: 27 February 2016
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Abstract Under the auspices of the Portuguese colonial
government, Lereno Barradas and Santos Jnior (coordi-
nator of the Anthropological Mission of Mozambique)
carried out several archaeological field surveys from
1936 to 1956 that resulted in a data set that includes a
total of close to 90 sites, mostly attributed to the Stone
Age. This early research added to the previous work of
Van Riet Lowe in the Limpopo Valley of southern
Mozambique. With the new millennium, Mozambique
has emerged as a crucial geographic area in which to
understand the various hypotheses about recent human
evolution. Specifically, its coastal location between
southern and eastern Africa is ideal for testing ideas about
the link between early coastal adaptations and the ap-
pearance of anatomically modern humans (AMH).
Except for the recent work by Mercaders team in north-
ern Mozambique, the number of researchers and projects
on this topic in Mozambique is still limited because of the
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this
article (doi:10.1007/s10437-016-9212-4) contains supplementary
material, which is available to authorized users.
C. Gonalves : M. Raja : O. Madime : J. Cascalheira :
J. Haws : D. Matos : N. Bicho (*)
ICArEHB, Faculdade de Cincias Humanas e Sociais,
Universidade do Algarve, Campus de Gambelas, 8005-139 Faro,
Portugal
e-mail: nbicho@ualg.pt
M. Raja : O. Madime
Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Mozambique
J. Haws
University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA
general predominance of interest in later periods among
archaeologists working in the country, mainly due to their
focus on issues related to precolonial heritage and nation-
al identity. Based on the early maps from Santos Jnior
and more recent data acquired through various projects,
we present a series of maps for the Stone Age prehistory
of Mozambique. The maps are also based on a critical
evaluation of the sites and a review of some of the
materials that are presently curated at the Instituto de
Investigao Cientfica e Tropical (IICT) in Lisbon,
Portugal, as well as the materials stored at the
Department of Archaeology of Universidade Eduardo
Mondlane, Maputo. The sites are also presented in an
online database with the information on all sites used in
this study. This database is open to all and will be updated
continuously. A preliminary interpretation of the regional
distribution of the sites is also attempted, linking aspects
that include region, topography and altitude, geomor-
phology, and cultural phase. These results will be the
first step for research and knowledge in Mozambique
on Stone Age prehistory and the emergence and settle-
ment pattern of AMH.
Rsum Sous les auspices du gouvernement colonial
portugais, Lereno Barradas et Santos Jnior (le
coordinateur de la Mission anthropologique du
Mozambique) ont effectu plusieurs enqutes de terrain
archologique 19361956 qui a abouti un ensemble de
donnes qui comprend un total de prs de 90 sites, la
plupart du temps attribu lge de pierre. Ces travaux de
recherche ajoute des travaux antrieurs de Van Riet
Lowe dans la valle du Limpopo sud du Mozambique.
Avec le nouveau millnaire, le Mozambique a merg
2 Afr Archaeol Rev (2016) 33:112
comme une zone gographique crucial de comprendre les
diverses hypothses sur lvolution humaine rcente. Plus
prcisment, sa situation ctire entre Afrique australe et
orientale est idal pour tester des ides sur le lien entre les
adaptations ctires dbut et lapparition de lhomme
anatomiquement moderne (AMH). Sauf pour les travaux
rcents de lquipe de Mercader au nord du Mozambique,
le nombre de chercheurs et de projets sur ce sujet au
Mozambique est encore limit en raison de la
prdominance dintrt gnral dans les priodes
ultrieures parmi les archologues travaillant dans le pays,
principalement en raison de leur focalisation sur des ques-
tions connexes deffectuer une pr-coloniale du
patrimoine et de lidentit nationale. Bas sur les
premires cartes de Santos Jnior et des donnes plus
rcentes acquises travers divers projets, nous
prsentons une srie de cartes pour la prhistoire Stone
Age du Mozambique. Les cartes sont galement bass sur
une valuation critique des sites et un examen de certaines
des matires qui sont actuellement organise au Instituto
de Investigao Cientfica e Tropical (IICT) Lisbonne,
Portugal, et le matriaux dans le dpartement
darchologie de lUniversit Eduardo Mondlane,
Maputo. Il est galement prsent une base de donnes
en ligne des informations sur tous les sites utiliss dans
cette tude. Cette base de donnes est ouverte tous et
sera mise jour en continu. Linterprtation prliminaire
de la rpartition rgionale des sites est galement tent,
reliant aspects comprennent la rgion, de la topographie et
de laltitude, de la gomorphologie et la phase culturelle.
Ces rsultats seront une premire tape pour la recherche
et les connaissances sur la prhistoire au Mozambique
Stone Age et le modle dmergence et le rglement des
AMH.
Keywords Stone Age . Mozambique . Southern Africa .
GIS
Introduction
In a comprehensive review of the African evidence for
biological and cultural evolution since the appearance of
anatomically modern humans (AMH) 200,000 years
ago, McBrearty and Brooks (2000) produced a map of
the continent marking many relevant known Middle
Stone Age (MSA) paleoanthropological and archaeo-
logical sites. Their map shows a remarkable density of
sites in southern Africa, but the entire area within the
national boundaries of Mozambique is blank. This is
despite previous fieldwork during the Portuguese occu-
pation prior to independence, in 1975, as well as the
research in the late twentieth century by national archae-
ological teams. The primary reason is that very little
Stone Age field research was carried out in
Mozambique in postcolonial times, due to decades of
civil war and a shift in research focus to more recent
historical times, mostly seeking the origins of national
identity. Also, most known sites were discovered prior
to the development of most radiometric dating methods
and thus lack age control.
Soon after the beginning of the new millennium,
Stone Age research in Mozambique saw a resurgence
due to the work of Julio Mercader, the development of
new academic structures in social sciences at the
Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (Maputo), and the
production of various MA theses and doctoral disserta-
tions (e.g., Meneses 2004; Rodrigues 2004). Still, the
general perception is that very few Stone Age sites are
known from Mozambique.
Our team started preliminary research in 2011 in
Mozambique, with reconnaissance fieldwork in the
south of the country. In 2014 we carried out field survey
in the Niassa Province, in the north. Prior to the field
work, we carried out a preliminary review of the artifact
collections kept in the Department of Archaeology and
Anthropology of Universidade Eduardo Mondlane
(Maputo) and the Instituto de Investigao Cientfica e
Tropical (IICT) in Lisbon, where many materials col-
lected in Mozambique, respectively after and prior to the
independence, are currently stored.
Here, we provide compiled data on the Stone Age
sites in Mozambique found prior to 2013. We also
present a locational geographic information system
(GIS) model for the three Stone Age phases for
Mozambique, and present an online open database for
the location and general information on the Stone Age
sites from the country. Finally, we develop and present a
preliminary interpretation of the results, based on re-
gional and local settings of each Stone Age phase.
Research History
The first mention of prehistoric archeology in
Mozambique was in 1721 by the bishop of
Mozambique, where he mentioned the presence of rock
paintings there (DAA 1980). The next reference seems
Afr Archaeol Rev (2016) 33:112
to have been by Carl Wise, who in 1907 surveyed the
area of Chifunbaze in the region of Tete (DAA 1980;
Morais 1988), followed by a short news report in a local
newspaper, the Gazeta, where Peringuey (1912) men-
tioned the presence of lithic artifacts. In the following
year, Leite de Vasconcelos, director of the Portuguese
National Museum of Archaeology, described a lithic
implement found in the Buzi River, in the central region
of Sofala. In 1915, Wayland published a note in Man on
his discoveries of lithic artifacts in the province of
Mozambique (Wayland 1915).
No work was carried out in the country for almost 20
years after. Starting in 1936, the Portuguese government
implemented the Anthropological Missions of
Mozambique. There were six missions over about two
decades, in 1936, 1937, 1945, 1946, 1948, and 1955/
1956 (Rodrigues 1998/1999, 2004). These were headed
by Joaquim Santos Jnior, a medical doctor from
Oporto. Although the main focus was ethnography and
biological anthropology, Santos Jnior had a vast inter-
est in archaeology and prehistory, and, thus, some of the
effort was diverted toward archaeological heritage in the
country (Santos Jnior 1936, 1945, 1952). The result
was a preliminary archaeological atlas of Mozambique
(Fig. 1), where over 70 Stone Age sites (Fig. 2) are listed
and located (Santos Jnior 1950). No excavations were
carried out, but a large stone tool surface collection was
gathered and transported to Lisbon and can be found
today at the IICT.
During the same period, Lereno Barradas, an agro-
nomic engineer who carried out geological and archae-
ological survey in southern Mozambique (Adamowicz
and Nhatule 2011; DAA 1988), investigated the Stone
Age in this area of the country. In part, this work resulted
in the creation of the Committee on Historical
Monuments and Relics of Mozambique in 1943 (DAA
1980). Due to the increased interest in the Stone Age of
South Africa, H. Breuil and C. Riet Lowe (Morais 1988)
made a reconnaissance trip to the Magude and Antioca
sites and found several other sites, namely, Boane, the
Movene River terrace, and Delagoa Plantation among
others. The material found by Breuil and Riet Lowe
(1944) were attributed to the Acheulean (DAA 1988;
Morais 1988) and helped to integrate the Early Stone
Age (ESA) of Mozambique into the general framework
of southern Africa and Paleolithic Europe.
Starting in the 1960s, work by Oliveira (1963, 1975),
and Ervedosa (1968) turned attention to the Stone Age
in central Mozambique (DAA 1988). Shortly after,
3
intensive work began on the Iron Age, in the Sofala
fortress, with work by Dickinson (1971) between 1969
and 1972 and later by G. Liesegang (1972) in 1971. In
that same decade, Miguel Ramos carried out archaeo-
logical surveys in the Tete region during construction of
the Cahora Bassa dam (Morais 1988; Ramos 1990;
Sinclair et al. 1993), while in the south, Senna-
Martinez surveyed the coastal areas for both Stone
Age and Iron Age deposits, locating a series of ancient
coastal shell middens.
L. Barradas, G. Carvalho Soares, and Revil Mason
carried out an archaeological survey during the con-
struction of the Massingir dam, resulting in a series of
Stone Age and Iron Age sites, all published in 1975.
Additional fieldwork also focused on the fluvial terraces
of the major rivers in south central Mozambiquethe
Zambezi, Save, and Limpopowhere numerous open-
air sites yielded heavily water-worn stone artifacts in
Pleistocene sediments (Barradas 1945; Carvalho et al.
1975; Dias 1948; Ervedosa 1968; Moreira 1984).
Barradas (1948) mentions Stone Age occupations in
rockshelters located near Maputo in the Changalane
and Umbeluzi basins at the edge of the Libombo moun-
tains. Additional work along the coastal cliffs and bar-
rier islands found relict beach deposits that date to the
Last Interglacial when sea levels are thought to have
been slightly higher than at present (Barradas 1964).
After independence, in 1975, there was a radical
change in the orientation of archaeological research
(Morais 1988) and a new phase of work began, with
particular emphasis on more recent periods of the
countrys history (DAA 1988)the objective was to
clarify the processes of change in Mozambican preco-
lonial society (Morais 1988) and to enquire about issues
related to national identity. New political and govern-
mental structures were created, both to reorganize
higher education in archaeology and to protect archae-
ological heritage (DAA 1988). In the 1980s, the
Swedish Development Cooperation Agency,
Department for Research (SIDA/SAREC), gave a
renewed emphasis to the study of Stone Age archaeol-
ogy in Mozambique. This helped set up research con-
ducted by Meneses (2004) for her doctoral dissertation
on the Early Stone Age of southern Mozambique.
Other projects were developed on the prehistory of
the country after the turn of the millennium, including
those in the Zambezi and Limpopo regions under the
auspices of the Environmental Archaeology Group
(African Archaeological Network). SIDA/SAREC
4 Afr Archaeol Rev (2016) 33:112

Fig. 1 Map of prehistory of Mozambique made by Santos Jnior (1950)

funded work in the Massingir area in Chinhangane,
linking the archaeological research in Mozambique,
Tanzania, and Zimbabwe (Macamo 2005, 2006). In prep-
aration for the Mependa Uncua dam project in the middle
reach of the Zambezi River, an archaeological survey
produced lithic evidence for all periods of the Stone Age.
Between 1998 and 2006 a new project funded by the
Norwegian government, Archaeological Research and
Management of Cultural Heritage in Mozambique, was
developed for the districts of Manica and Macanga on
the Late Stone Age (LSA) and Iron Age, run by T.
Stersdal and culminating in his 2004 doctoral thesis
entitled Places, People and Ancestors: Archaeology and
Society in Manica.
The only project fully dedicated to the Stone Age was
Human Origins, Archaeology, Culture and Heritage in the
Mozambique Rift, coordinated by J. Mercader in the dis-
tricts of Lago and Sanga, from 2003 to 2008 in the Niassa
region (Lake Malawi). The results of that project are now
the fundamental basis for knowledge about the Stone Age
in northern Mozambique, including data on absolute chro-
nology, technology, and early human economy and re-
source exploitation (Mercader 2009, 2014; Mercader and
Silln 2012; Mercader et al. 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013).
Afr Archaeol Rev (2016) 33:112
Fig. 2 Lithic artifacts from the site of Santos Jnior (1937)
Between 2009 and 2015 the project was redirected to
the Gorongosa (Sofala), Namapa, Montepus, Pemba
and Quissanga (Cabo Delgado) regions, but only pre-
liminary work was carried out in Gorongosa in the first
years of the project.
Mapping the Stone Age of Mozambique
Mozambique is located in the tropical zone of the south-
eastern African margin between 10 and 27 S latitude.
The country encompasses over 800,000 km2 with a
2500-km stretch of coast and a broad, undulating,
150600 km coastal plain, bounded by mountainous
areas along the border of Zimbabwe and South Africa
that reach several thousand meters in altitude. The Great
Rift Valley terminates in northern Mozambique at the
southern edge of Lake Malawi (also known locally as
Lake Niassa). Geologically, billion-year-old
Precambrian rocks comprise about half the country
(Afonso et al. 1998; Cumbe 2007; King 1972; Lchelt
2004). Karoo volcanic rocks occur in the north, while
5
Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments underlie the southern
part of Mozambique. In the latter area, the Mesozoic
sediments include Jurassic and Cretaceous limestone in
which caves form. The Cenozoic beds also include
Quaternary sediments (2 Myapresent) that preserve
Pleistocene soils and archaeological sites (Barradas
1945, 1947, 1955, 1964, 1965). Many of the archaeo-
logical finds derive from Pleistocene alluvial terraces
along major southern rivers, the Save and Limpopo and
their tributaries. Along the coast, Quaternary sand dunes
with buried soils and shell middens occur.
Morais (1984), in a review article on archaeological
research in Mozambique, noted the existence of 93
Stone Age sites known from the anthropological and
archaeological missions during the colonial era, as de-
scribed above. Subsequent fieldwork during the archae-
ological survey program (19771983) added 19 new
sites (Morais 1984). The early numbers resulted from
the Santos Jnior maps of the prehistoric sites of
Mozambique (Santos Jnior 1937, 1938, 1940, 1941,
1944, 1946, 1947, 1950), recently reviewed by Roque
(2002) and Roque and Ferro (2004).
6 Afr Archaeol Rev (2016) 33:112

The work of Meneses (1988, 1999) in the south as

well as Mercader in the Niassa and Gorongosa regions
largely increased the number of Stone Age sites, to which
were added a few new locations with preliminary field-
work by Haws and Bicho in 2011 and 2012 in the
Maputo district (Haws et al. 2013). As of 2012, there
are a total of 258 referenced Stone Age sites (Online
Resource 1), located in all 10 districts, but concentrated
mostly in the Maputo, Sofala, and Tete regions.
Unfortunately, many of those site locations either have
incorrect specific geographic coordinates, where location
is not exact or accurate, or have no coordinates associated
with the name of the site. Fortunately, Santos Jnior often
described the geographic context of site locations
including the nearest settlement or town, the distance to
roads, rivers, lakes, or any other distinctive physical
elements on the landscape. In many cases, the name of
the settlement used was the Portuguese denomination
and not the present one, but with the aid of colonial
cartography and Google Earth, we were able to
accurately locate many site locations. In other cases,
using original Santos Jnior maps (1950) and ArcGIS,
we were able to reach approximate locations for addi-
tional sites. The result is a map with 141 sites, of which
71 have approximate geographic coordinates and 70 sites
are precisely located (Fig 3).
From 258 sites (Table 1), there are 53 attributed
generically to the Stone Age, while the remaining in-
Fig. 3 Map of the location of known Stone Age sites in
clude 79 multicomponent sites (mostly with ESA and Mozambique
MSA artifacts), 68 ESA, 39 MSA, and 19 LSA (Figs. 4,
5, and 6). From this sample, only some 20 sites have point to an MSA starting around 150 ka. No absolute
been tested or excavated, mostly by Meneses (1999) for dates are known for the ESA in Mozambique.
her dissertation and by Mercaders team (Mercader et al. Site distribution is very uneven across the country,
2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013) in the Niassa region, although there are a few site concentrations. From north
although many of the others were surface collected. to south, these concentrations are in (1) the Niassa
There are only 10 caves or rockshelters listed, found region, mostly due to the work of Mercaders team in
mostly by Mercader in either the Niassa or the the last decade; (2) in the Cahora Bassa dam area, many
Gorongosa region. The more important sites include of which are now underwater and were likely the result
Caimane in the Maputo district, where testing took place of the early work of Santos Junior; (3) in the Gorongosa
in the early 1980s by Morais (1984) and more recently Natural Park, again due to the good offices of Mercader
by a Swedish team, covering all prehistory from the and colleagues; and (4) in the Boane, Changalane, and
ESA to the Iron Age; and Ngalue, in the Lago district Namaacha regions, in the south, near Maputo. In this
excavated by Mercader (Mercader et al. 2009) with case, the results are due to a fairly high intensity survey
MSA and LSA sites. The latter provided the only abso- through the years, starting with Santos Junior during
lute dates for the Stone Age in Mozambique. In addition colonial times, followed by the work of Joo Morais
to these two cave sites, there are also two dated open-air after independence, and more recently by Paula
sites, Mikuyu and Mvumu, excavated recently by Meneses and mitigation studies by Leonardo
Mercaders team (Mercader et al. 2008, 2012, 2013) Adamowicz in the areas of recent dam constructions.
on the slopes above Lake Malawi. The dating results Otherwise, sites are spread randomly across the territory.
Afr Archaeol Rev (2016) 33:112 7

While MSA seems to follow the same general pattern of

all Stone Age sites, ESA sites seem to be mostly con-
centrated in the southern regions (Boane, Changalane,
and Namaacha) as well as in the Cahora Bassa basin.
There seems to be a small concentration of ESA sites in
the Beira area.
Concerning the LSA, sites with exact locations are
rare, with a total of 65 sites spread over the entire country.
There is a clear concentration in the Boane-Changalane
area and in the Gorongosa National Park. Even smaller
groups can be seen in the Cahora Bassa and Niassa
regions, but in all cases these concentrations are small.
Although it is possible to observe these various site
concentrations across time and space, including in each
phase, it is fundamental to note that these patterns are
most likely artificial, likely due to the location of past
research or the lack of investigations in certain regions.
It is interesting to note also that many sites are within a
narrow band near the roads or main trails.
Open-air sites are the most common site type across
the country. Nevertheless, there are a few cave and
rockshelter sites. This seems more common in the
MSA and LSA since there is a single case of an ESA
cave site in southern Mozambique (Caimane), in the
Changalane area. There seems to be some differences
in the regional distribution, with more common cave
and rockshelter sites in the center of the country (mostly Fig. 4 Map of the known Early Stone Age sites in Mozambique
in the Gorongosa National Park) and during the MSA.
Nevertheless, the LSA also presents some site diversity
with caves (in the south, in Changalane), rockshelters in The other interesting information at the sites is
the Gorongosa region, and finally the presence of coast- their altitudinal distribution patterns across both time
al shell middens, north of Maputo as well as in the and space. During the ESA, sites are lowest in the
extreme north in the Cabo Delgado region. south between 20 and 240 m of altitude. In the center
the sites are located between 330 and 450 m, while in
Table 1 Number of Stone Age sites per chronological phase the north the altitude seems to be within the 550600-
m range, mostly in the Niassa region. During the
Chronological phase All sites Sites with coordinates
MSA, altitudes range in the south from 10 to ca.
N % N % 300 m, while in the north the range increased sub-
stantially, with the inclusion of sites as high as
ESA 68 26.4 22 8.5 1300 m above sea level (asl). This is the case of the
ESA + MSA 32 12.4 25 9.7 Malulu region, where Mercaders team found a few
ESA + LSA 3 1.2 0 0.0 cave sites, including the most important site in the
ESA + MSA + LSA 24 9.3 10 3.9 regionNgalue (Mercader et al. 2009).
MSA 39 15.1 22 8.5 In the center, there seem to be two different patterns:
MSA + LSA 20 7.8 13 5.0 while coastal sites present lower altitudes, between 100
LSA 19 7.4 10 3.9 and 200 m asl, inland there are sites between 200 and
Undifferentiated Stone Age 53 20.5 39 15.1 400 m high. Based on these differences, it is possible to
Total 258 100 141 100 suggest that there was a change in settlement pattern
between ESA and MSA, with an extension of the range
8 Afr Archaeol Rev (2016) 33:112
Fig. 5 Map of the known Middle Stone Age sites in Mozambique
in altitude and likely in ecological settings during the
MSA.
The same seems to have taken place during the LSA,
with the inclusion of shores as seen by the location of a
couple of shell middens, and with high altitude sites
both in the center and in the northern regions of
Mozambique, with sites as high as 1600 m asl. Again,
a word of caution: these patterns are based on absolute
altitude above sea levelthus, they only give a general
idea of the range used by those hominin populations,
with the inclusion of mountain settings in their mobility
and settlement patterns. More work would have to entail
detailed research with accurate data on local landscape
GIS models.
Data on material culture are unfortunately very scarce
except for the work of Meneses (2004) on the ESA of
southern Mozambique and Bennetts MA thesis (2011)
on the MSA and LSA of the Niassa region. The ESA
seems to be marked by the presence of Acheulean with
bifaces in southern Mozambique (Meneses 1988, 2004),
while the MSA in the Niassa region is characterized by
Fig. 6 Map of the known Late Stone Age sites in Mozambique
quartz assemblages made mostly on flakes. Retouched
tools are fairly rare with rare scrapers and points.
Technology is simple, with some prepared cores and
bipolar technology. The LSA is basically unknown,
although Bennett (2013) states that the MSA character-
istics tend to continue after 40 ka in the Niassa region.
Unfortunately, the number of sites with both dated
archaeological horizons and stone tool analyses is basi-
cally nonexistent; thus, the definition of technology for
the Stone Age in Mozambique is, at best, ambiguous
and it still has a long way to go. At the moment, it is
basically impossible to determine the chronology of a
site based only on Stone Age assemblages in
Mozambique, because there are extremely few excavat-
ed and dated sites for all of Mozambique.
Database of Stone Age Sites
Based on information from each site, we have developed
an online open database that can be accessed by all. The
Afr Archaeol Rev (2016) 33:112 9

database includes a set of variables and tools that can be
explored by the user. It includes variables such as site
name, district, province, geographic coordinates (longi-
tude and latitude based on the datum WGS-84), altitude,
accuracy of location, chronology, site type, presence/
absence of excavations at the site, and corresponding
bibliographic references. Since data are shared using the
Google Fusion Tables web application, users can filter
the information and check automatically for locational
patterns, regional densities, and information on, for ex-
ample, chronology and site typology. In addition, there is
also one tool with the set of info cards for each site listed
in the database.
The online address is https://www.google.com/
fusiontables/DataSource?docid=
1hRiEsDsdWGXXCmPe8kIeiZVP6n3IhRlfzXG1T2pi.
Although information input is not allowed from the
general public, we intend, in the near future, to enlarge
the database with data coming from our own survey
project in Mozambique and incorporate more variables
including absolute dating results for dated sites or, when
available, a photographic record. If possible, we would
like also to extend information to nearby regions/coun-
tries, through collaboration with the teams working in,
for example, Malawi and South Africa. This will be a
very useful tool for current and future researchers,
allowing them to consult quickly and compare in a
single online data bank the currently available site in-
formation on the Stone Age of southern Africa.
Based on the Stone Age record of neighboring coun-
tries, namely South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and
Zimbabwe, Mozambique should have a very high po-
tential for the Stone Age archaeology, especially MSA.
Still, the country remains largely unknown to the inter-
national archaeological community. In this article, we
have made the first attempt to point out the large number
of known Stone Age sites. Unfortunately, close to half
have no location except for the attributed name and there
are only 70 with exact geographic coordinates, many of
which were never confirmed. Very few sites have been
the focus of testing or excavation, and the number of
absolute dates is extremely low, less than 10 for the
whole country and the whole chronological range of
Stone Age.
Based on geology and geomorphology as well as on
the known previous location of Stone Age sites, and our
own (still limited) field experience, we can suggest the
potential richness of areas for Stone Age occupations in
Mozambique (Fig. 7).

Final Remarks

The geologic and geomorphologic conditions across

Mozambique have great potential for early prehistory.
Sandstone and limestone regions are common in many
areas of the country, perfect for the formation of caves
and rockshelters that will support the preservation of
fauna and a diversity of paleobotanical remains, as seen
in the Malulu area in the Lago district (Mercader et al.
2009, 2012, 2013). The river valleys such as Limpopo,
Save, Buzi, Zambezi, and Lrio all have stretches
marked by Pliocene and Pleistocene terraces extending
hundreds of kilometers. The Lake Malawi area has
many small rivers with complex terrace systems, with
great potential for the presence of Stone Age archaeol-
ogy, as we confirmed in 2014 in the Lunho Valley,
where a 50-km river that empties into the lake near Fig. 7 Map of Mozambique with estimated regions of high po-
Metangula. tential for conducting Stone Age archaeology
10
Clearly, areas where both caves and rockshelters can
be formed will provide important locations for ESA,
MSA, and LSA. Acheulean materials are found isolated
or in groups in many spots over the entire country. Still,
valleys such as the Elephant and Limpopo Rivers in the
south, as well as the Zambezi River in central
Mozambique, appear to have the higher potential for
finding future Acheulean sites. Our experience in the
field suggests that the Elephant River has much poten-
tial for very early sites, some of them older than
Acheulean, due to the presence of Late Pliocene sedi-
ment fluvial formations that can be easily surveyed.
In the case of MSA and LSA sites, their best potential
is in the limestone and sandstone formations and outcrops
(Grantham et al. 2011; Lchelt 2004) found in the inland
regions of Niassa, Gorongosa, and Nampula and in a few
small streams in the Massingir area. On the coast, the two
main regions of high potential are the Cabo Delgado
province in the north and the Vilanculos coastal strip in
the central portion of Mozambique, both with limestone
formations. It is more difficult to estimate the potential for
locating open-air sites, because basically the whole coast-
al strip and inland fluvial terraces have archaeological
materials characteristic of the MSA and LSA. Over the
next few years, our team will focus on three main areas:
Niassa, Massingir, and Vilanculos, all considered to have
high potential for ESA and MSA archaeology.
In the last decade, southern Africa has become the
central region for studying the emergence of our species
(e.g., Marean 2011; Marean and Assefa 2005). Most of
the new discoveries of symbolic behavior and expansion
of ecological niches come from caves or rockshelters in
South Africa, including Sibudu or those found in the
Western Cape region of South Africa, such as Mossel
Bay (Marean et al. 2007) or Blombos Cave
(Henshilwood et al. 2004, 2011). The similarities be-
tween the geological and geomorphological settings as
well as the coastal landscape of the Western Cape region
and various areas of Mozambique clearly show the
potential that Mozambique has to inform about the
Middle Stone Age in Africa and our knowledge of the
emergence of anatomically modern human behavior.
Acknowledgments We would like to thank Fundao para a
Cincia e Tecnologia (grant number PTDC/EPH-ARQ/4998/2012)
and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research for
funding the research in Mozambique. The archaeological permit
was given by the Direco Nacional do Patrimnio Cultural de
Moambique. Finally, we also would like to thank two anonymous
reviewers whose comments helped to improve this paper.
Afr Archaeol Rev (2016) 33:112
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