Zambia

The Great Rift Valley, which runs from the Lower Zambezi River in southern Zambia to the headwaters of the Nile in Egypt, is known to be one of the cradles of the human race, and Zambia’s present population lives on lands that have been inhabited by their forebears for aeons.

Archaeologists have established that in the northern African Rift Valley, human civilization got underway at least three million years ago, and crude stone implements have been found beside the Zambezi River.

Early Stone Age sites have been unearthed in many parts of Zambia, the most significant being at the Kalambo Falls in the North and at Victoria Falls in the south. At the former, there is evidence that early humans began using fire about 60 000 years ago. At the latter, a complex has been fully exposed showing the development of skills from the distant past (this dig is enclosed at the Field Museum at the Victoria Falls).

The skull of the famous ‘Broken Hill Man’, dated to 70 000 years ago, gives an indication of what humans of that period looked like.

It was during the next phase – the Middle Stone Age – with its refinement in the manufacture of tools, differentiation between populations, and burial of the dead, that modern humans probably emerged in what is now Zambia, at least 25 000 years ago.