Mumba‐Höhle revisited: The relevance of a forgotten excavation to some current issues in east African prehistory

Large scale archaeological field work was undertaken in the Lake Eyasi basin of northern Tanzania during the 1930s under the direction of Ludwig and Margit Kohl‐Larsen. Their excavations at Mumba Rock Shelter and the results of subsequent analyses of fauna, lithics, soils, burials and pottery are considered in some detail. More than 9 m. of deposit have provided artefacts ranging in type from Middle Stone Age to Iron Age. The Mumba Shelter is of particular interest because its upper sediments document a high stand of Lake Eyasi in end‐Pleistocene/early‐Holocene times, and midden deposits both above and below the lacustrine interlude are dominated by snail shells (Achatina sp.). A lithic industry apparently transitional between Middle and Late Stone Age industries is associated with the inception of the escargotière deposits, and a date for these phenomena indicates an age of c. 31,000 B.P. The excavation of witness sections at Mumba in 1977 has provided organic debris for radiometric dates and has served to clarify the Late Stone Age/Iron Age sequence of ceramic wares.