“Zambia’s Human Occupation Dates Back to 400,000 Years”
A team of Archaeologists and paleo-anthropologists that conducted a research in Chama District of Muchinga Province has released initial findings showing that Zambia has a long history of human occupation and early stone tools.
Team Leader Professor Ariane Burke at the University of Montreal in Canada says the research conducted in August last year and funded by the National Geographic Society looked for evidence of ancient human activity possibly dating to between 400,000 and 20,000 years ago.
Professor Burke says in a statement to ZNBC News in Livingstone that more than one-thousand-two-hundred stone artifacts were collected from excavations near Sitwe, part of the upper Luangwa River Valley in Chama.
He says the uncovered artifacts, which include the ones collected from the surface in the area, were created by early human ancestors dating from the Early Stone Age to the Late Stone Age.
Professor Burke has explained that the samples are currently being processed in Canada and that the surveys were conducted to help the research team understand how the prehistoric hunter-gatherers used the landscape along the Luangwa Basin.
He said the surveys also give clues of the temperature and rainfall patterns in North-Eastern Zambia over the past few million years.
The Research team comprised of international experts from the McGill University in Canada, the Faro University in Portugal, and Zambians from the University of Zambia, the Livingstone Museum and the National Heritage Conservation Commission.
