Dambwa-group settlements were distributed near Victoria Falls and as far as Sesheke in the upper Zambezi valley. They were located in the Kalahari sand country on both banks of the Zambezi. The settlements yielded many globular vessels with prominent rim-bands decorated through incision, grooving, or stamping, giving the group a recognizable ceramic profile.

One representative settlement at Dambwa near Livingstone was radiocarbon dated to around the seventh or eighth century. J. O. Vogel distinguished four Early Iron Age stages in the region, beginning with an early phase related to the Machili site and extending to phases nearly a thousand years later. The terminology is not entirely stable, since the grouping is also described as the Shongwe tradition.

Dambwa pottery shares characteristics with the lower levels of the Kalundu mound, while its strongest parallels lie with lowland sites south of the Zambezi and with Gokomere-type wares of the Rhodesian Plateau. Some archaeologists consequently interpret the Dambwa sites as a north-westward extension of the eastern stream of Early Iron Age traditions, although this remains a debated reconstruction.