Throughout the greater part of sub-Saharan Africa, as in many other parts of the world, the majority of the most recent lithic industries show a marked degree of typological similarity, being dominated by the microlithic components of composite artifacts. It is now known that industries of this type were established throughout most regions of the sub-continent between about the sixteenth and the seventh millennia B.C., although in some places their typological antecedents may be traced back into far earlier times. The broad geographical continuity of the stone industries of this time, together with their correspondence in many basic features with those of the stone-tool-using societies encountered by early European settlers and travellers in southern Africa, lead to the recognition of a loosely defined Later Stone Age. Although of some utility in the general or semi-popular presentation of archaeological material, such broad cultural–stratigraphic terms as ‘Middle Stone Age’, ‘Later Stone Age’, etc. are now seen to be of limited value in the detailed ordering and synthesis of the steadily growing body of primary data.

In much of sub-Saharan Africa, more especially in the eastern and central areas, the study of Stone Age archaeology was largely inspired by pioneer researchers in South Africa. It is to South African work that may also be traced the cultural–stratigraphic nomenclature which has been somewhat acritically applied to industries far removed from the inadequately described sites and industries for which it was originally propounded, as well as many of the models, concepts and misconceptions which have for long been an integral part of African archaeological thought.