Stone Age Archaeology in the Elephant River Valley, Southwestern Mozambique

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology in Mozambique: Current Issues and Topics in Archaeology and Heritage Management" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Located between modern-day South Africa and Tanzania, both of which have well-known and extensive Stone Age records, Mozambique and its Stone Age sequence remain largely unknown in the broader context of African Pleistocene prehistory. This is despite the country’s critical position linking southern and eastern Africa, and of its clear potential to inform various models about recent human evolution. Here, we present the results of field survey, testing, and archaeological excavation in the Elephant River valley, in the Massingir region of southwestern Mozambique. The Stone Age research took place between 2015 and 2019 and dozens of surface sites were found with ESA, MSA, and LSA assemblages. Three sites were excavated, providing important lithic and organic collections as well as some absolute dates: Mapa, Txina-Txina, and Machampane 1.

Cite this Record

Stone Age Archaeology in the Elephant River Valley, Southwestern Mozambique. Nuno Bicho, Jonathan Haws, João Cascalheira, Célia Gonçalves, Mussa Raja. Presented at The 86th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 2021 ( tDAR id: 466987)

Spatial Coverage

min long: 9.58; min lat: -35.461 ; max long: 57.041; max lat: 4.565 ;

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32072