Statistics and references

In 2000 the populations of the Kakumbi and Nsefu constituencies that cover the main Mfuwe area totalled 8,681. Literacy rates in Eastern Province (in which Mfuwe/Luangwa sit) are the lowest in the country at 37.9% (national average 55.3%) and the lowest percentage attending school (17.7%, national average 25.8%).

These trends apply across all the educational levels (pre-school, basic, primary and secondary). The national average literacy rate in rural areas is 44.7% compared to 71.5% in urban areas.

If the same percentages are applied in the Mambwe area (which incorporates Mfuwe) then a literacy level of only 23.7% applies. This clearly has significant implications for training for the tourism industry in the coming years.

The 2000 census data indicate that only 38.7% of the population have access to safe water. Only 2.9% have proper latrines. In these circumstances disease-related morbidity becomes a significant factor in labour productivity.

Work in the Mfuwe area has identified it as a "hot spot" for the HIV/AIDS/Tuberculosis/Malaria disease complex.

This combination of diseases is already a significant constraint, not just to productivity, but also to the cost of maintaining trained tourism staff [Statistics relating to the human population of the Luangwa Valley are hard to find and tend to be sketchy, this information was drawn from a tourism-related study by the Luangwa Safari Association Study who drew on available census information.]

Recent publications on Zambian prehistory:

• Barham, L & Mitchell, P 2008. The First Africans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Barham, L 2007. Modern is as modern does: technological trends and thresholds in the south-central African record. In Mellars, P et al (eds) Rethinking the Human Revolution, pp165-176. Cambridge: McDonald Institute.
• Barham, L and CL Jarman. 2005. New radiocarbon dates for the Early Iron Age in the Luangwa Valley, Eastern Zambia. Azania XL:114-21
• Barham, LS, Pinto, AL, & Stringer, CB 2002. 'Bone tools from Broken Hill (Kabwe) cave, Zambia and their evolutionary significance. Before Farming: the archaeology of Old World hunter-gatherers 2002/2 (3):1-16.
• Barham, LS 2002. 'Systematic pigment use in the Middle Pleistocene of south-central Africa.' Current Anthropology 43(1):181-190.
• Barham, LS, 2002. 'Backed tools in the Middle Pleistocene of central Africa and their evolutionary significance.' Journal of Human Evolution 43:585-603.
• Barham, LS 2001. 'Central Africa and the emergence of regional identity in the Middle Pleistocene.' In Human Roots: Africa and Asia in the Middle Pleistocene ( L Barham & K Robson-Brown eds):65-80. Bristol: Western Academic and Specialist Press.
• Barham, LS 2000. The Middle Stone Age of Zambia, south-central Africa. Bristol: Western Academic and Specialist Press.
• Barham, LS 1999. 'A new geometric painted site from Zambia.'
  Southern African Field Archaeology 7:101-105.
• Clark, JD 2001 Kalambo Falls, volume III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Elton, S, Barham, LS, Andrews, P & Sambrook Smith, G. 2003. 'Pliocene femur of Theropithecus from the Luangwa Valley, Zambia'.
  Journal of Human Evolution 44:133-139.