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"Kalambo Falls prehistoric site III: The earlier cultures: Middle and earlier Stone Age" by J. D. Clark with Julie Cormack and Susie Chin is reviewed.

J.D. CLARK with JULIE CORMACK & SUSIE CHIN. Kalambo Falls prehistoric site III: The earlier cultures: Middle and earlier Stone Age. xix+769 pages, 279 figures, 121 tables. 2001. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 0-521-- 20071-7 hardback L250 &

This massive book completes an exceptional trilogy of scholarship that began in 1969 with the publication of Kalambo Falls vol. 1, followed in 1974 by vol. 11. The appearance of vol. III 25 years later is a remarkable achievement, enabled by the support of close colleagues, but that long interval is also the book's chief drawback, as Clark himself acknowledges. With some candour he describes the various conflicts and financial pressures that delayed its publication until the end of his long career.

The Kalambo Falls riverside site in northeastern Zambia provides one of the few stratified sequences in Africa that spans about 400,000 years of human activity from the late Acheulian to the early Iron Age. The site was renowned for its Acheulian levels where waterlogged conditions preserved wooden tools, nuts, seeds, burning and possibly living surfaces with structures and sleeping hollows. These initial interpretations are revised here with a more cautious assessment of the fluvial deposits and their effect on the archaeological record. Schick's (chapter 7) analysis of the artefact content confirms earlier flume-based studies, by her and others, that show considerable winnowing of small finds from the assemblages and re-sorting. The idea of living surfaces can no longer be sustained. The wooden tools are also treated with caution by Clark (chapter 8), who observes that stream action can create tool-like shapes on submerged branches and sticks. No chop marks or evidence of deliberate polishing survived on the putative tools. The abundant Acheulian stone artefacts, bifaces in particular, receive a thorough morphometric analysis from Roe (chapter 9), using his now classic method of statistical description. He notes ruefully that his research on the Kalambo bifaces was undertaken in the late 1960s and at the time was an innovative analytical approach. The passage of time has not diminished the value of Roe's work, and in fact it forms the basis of an allometric analysis of the Kalambo material by Gowlett et al. (chapter 12). Two additional chapters are devoted to the techniques of biface manufacture from experimental perspectives (Toth, chapter 10; Edwards, chapter 11).

Much of the artefact analysis, which is the heart of this volume, was undertaken in the early 1970s and has not been altered substantially. The retention of terminology used in 1974, however, could confuse contemporary readers who face anew the now discarded labels of 'second intermediate' (table 1.2) and 'Magosian' (table 1.3) as applied to one of the Middle Stone Age assemblages. There is some repetition of content from earlier volumes, with chapters on the geological context and typology reprinted from vol. 11 and nine fold-out section drawings from vol. I. The latter no doubt added to the considerable cost of the current volume. This repetition was intended to compensate for vols I and II now being out of print.

Whilst the contents should be judged by the standards of the time, not by current methodological and theoretical concerns, the quality and quantity of data presented make this an invaluable resource for Africanists in particular and Palaeolithic archaeologists in general. The three volumes together comprise 1374 pages of densely packed information, analysis and beautifully rendered lithic illustrations by Betty Clark that will remain timeless. Kalambo Falls is now without doubt one of the most thoroughly described archaeological sites in Africa, comparable in coverage to Olduvai Gorge and Koobi Fora.

The bulk of this volume is devoted to the Acheulian assemblages, but of equal importance is the transition from the Acheulian to the Middle Stone Age as represented in the overlying colluvial deposits. This transition is under way in east Africa by 300,000 BP (Kapthurin Formation, Kenya) and is marked by great technological variability. At Kalambo, the sequence is not continuous but variability is evident in the late Acheulian (Sangoan) industry from which the Middle Stone Age (Lupemban) is ultimately derived. In the Lupemban, new tool forms and techniques of flaking (including Levallois and blade cores) appear as well the first use of ochre. Some modern behaviours appear to be emerging with the Lupemban and, elsewhere in Zambia (Twin Rivers), it is dated to at least 265,000 BP. The age of the Kalambo sequence remains undeveloped as most of the sequence is beyond the range of radiocarbon dating. A novel application of uranium-series dating (on wood) is reported here (McKinney, Appendix D) with results that must be seen as minimum ages for the Sangoan and Acheulian. Without a secure chronology, the revised palynological data (Taylor et al., chapter 3) cannot be assigned to particular climatic episodes with any certainty.

Clark and Roe bring the volume to a close with two summarizing and essential chapters. Clark places Kalambo in an African context and sets the agenda for future research at the site. Roe makes a far -reaching overview of the significance of Kalambo Falls in the context of the Old World Palaeolithic. This should be required reading for all students of (and lecturers on) the Palaeolithic. Alas, this is an unlikely event. Desmond was not alone in decrying the high price of this book, which puts it out of reach of the individual, if not many a cash-strapped university library.

The news of Desmond Clark's death reached me as I finished reading this book. Like many others, I benefited from his encyclopaedic knowledge and his encouragement. That he lived to see the publication, at long last, of his final volume on Kalambo Falls, is some small consolation for the loss of a master.