<P> Apart from some dry sections, the Second to Fifth and the Songwe Gorges each represents a past site of the falls at a time when they fell into one long straight chasm as they do now . Their sizes indicate that we are not living in the age of the widest - ever falls . </P> <P> The falls have already started cutting back the next major gorge, at the dip in one side of the "Devil's Cataract" (also known as "Leaping Waters") section of the falls . This is not actually a north - south crack, but a large east - northeast line of weakness across the river, where the next full - width falls will eventually form . </P> <P> Further geological history of the course of the Zambezi River is in the article of that name . </P> <P> Archaeological sites around the falls have yielded Homo habilis stone artifacts from 3 million years ago, 50,000 - year - old Middle Stone Age tools and Late Stone Age (10,000 and 2,000 years ago) weapons, adornments and digging tools . Iron - using Khoisan hunter - gatherers displaced these Stone Age people and in turn were displaced by Bantu tribes such as the southern Tonga people known as the Batoka / Tokalea, who called the falls Shungu na mutitima . The Matabele, later arrivals, named them aManz' aThunqayo, and the Batswana and Makololo (whose language is used by the Lozi people) call them Mosi - o - Tunya . All these names mean essentially "the smoke that thunders". </P>

Where does the water from victoria falls go