Kalambo Falls- Travel Tips

What to See, How to Plan & Tours

Kalambo Falls stands as one of Africa's tallest single-drop waterfalls, plunging 235 meters along the Zambia-Tanzania border near Lake Tanganyika. Beyond its dramatic natural beauty, the site holds profound archaeological importance, with evidence of human activity dating back nearly half a million years. In 2023, researchers uncovered 476,000-year-old wooden structures—the oldest known hominid-built features—shedding light on early tool use and fire mastery by pre-human species. The surrounding Kalambo Gorge, carved over millennia, stretches 5 kilometers with walls reaching 300 meters deep, creating a striking geological contrast to the falls' thunderous cascade. The area’s microclimate supports unique flora and fauna, including a marabou stork colony nesting on the cliffs. Explorers in the early 20th century, like Enid Gordon-Gallien, documented the falls' true height after initial overestimates, while later studies by archaeologist J.D. Clark revealed stratified layers of human habitation spanning the Stone and Iron Ages. Recognized as a Zambian national monument and a UNESCO tentative World Heritage Site, Kalambo Falls offers more than scenic grandeur—it's a living archive of human evolution. Artifacts like Acheulean hand axes and ancient hearths illustrate technological shifts, while pollen studies reconstruct Pleistocene environments. Today, the falls remain a vital ecological corridor, blending natural wonder with a tangible connection to humanity’s deepest origins.