Umbeli Belli Rock Shelter, a forgotten piece from the puzzle of the Middle Stone Age in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Lithic technology in the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa is key to reconstructing human daily life, people's interaction with their environment and technological and cultural change through time. Ongoing discussions about the evolution of technology in the MSA debate the causes of lithic variability within and between different assemblages across southern Africa. The well-known MSA sites such as Blombos Cave, Klasies River, Diepkloof and Sibudu serve as anchors for comparative studies by providing high resolution stratigraphies that cover long parts of the archaeological sequence. Researchers, however, should recognize that these and other key sites are often situated many hundreds kilometers away from each other and are located in diverse geographic settings, which raises questions about their comparability. It is therefore important to consider the archaeological signatures from less spectacular sites to help identify regional patterns and test models of cultural change at smaller spatial scales. KwaZulu-Natal serves as an excellent starting point to bring questions about continuity and change within the MSA into clearer focus, since the province contains several sites in close proximity to each other in comparable environments. Many of these sites, however, are still understudied or have even been forgotten completely. In this paper we describe the archaeological sequence of one such site, Umbeli Belli near Scottburgh. This site was excavated in 1979 by Charles Cable and contributes important information to the regional record of the MSA in KwaZulu-Natal.