ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT

OF THE ZIMBABWE CULTURE

STATES
BACKGROUND
THE ZIMBABWE CULTURE/TRADITION
• Probably the most important culture in the S.
African past associated with major cultural
developments in the region
• Zimbabwe culture/Tradition
traditionally/conventionally divided into 3 phases
• Each phase traditionally associated with the
emergence of a new state system
• Division largely based on changes in ceramic style
and stone architecture
Mapungubwe phase – Mapungubwe state

Zimbabwe phase – Zimbabwe state

Khami phase
• Torwa state
• Mutapa state
• Changamire-Rozvi state(s)
• Nambya state
• Venda state
• Division of the culture into these phases now
undergoing revision in light of recent research

• Site of Mapela, just 80 km west of Mapungubwe

across the Limpopo in Zimbabwe

• Mapela previously seen as a later site and provincial

centre of the Mapungubwe state
New evidence strongly suggests that:

• Mapela pre-dates Mapungubwe

• Mapela is much larger than Mapungubwe in spatial

extent

• A much greater investment in stone construction

• Spatial organization is much more complex

• Mapela has much more extensive stone
walling/terracing than Mapungubwe

• In fact there is very little stone walling at Mapungubwe

• Ceramic evidence suggests developments from

Leopard’s Kopje

• Mapela now proposed as representing origins of

Zimbabwe culture

• Mapungubwe itself a later development

New data call for re-thinking of the status of
Mapungubwe thus:

• Can it still be seen as representing the origins of

Zimbabwe culture?

• Was Mapungubwe Southern Africa’s earliest state?

• Was Mapungubwe the site of a state capital?

• Was Mapungubwe the region’s earliest urban centre?

• ALL NEW DATA FROM MAPELA SUGGEST OTHERWISE!!

Archaeological Correlates Of The Zimbabwe Culture
• Monumental dry stone walled structures representing a
regional cultural expression in S. Africa

• Over 250 stone sites known in the region

• Majority (over 200) in modern Zimbabwe

• The monumental architecture now agreed to be a

physical statement of the power & prestige of the ruling
classes

• Therefore symbols in action

Distribution of main Zimbabwe Tradition sites
Spatial organization

• Inside/Outside spatial dichotomy

• Substantial houses with solid mud/daga walls

within enclosures

• Elite inside/commoner outside

• Symbolic representation of status

• Dual settlement pattern at major sites
characterized by a hilltop/lower area

• Dichotomy symbolic of status

• Hilltop/Royalty

• Lower/Commoner
• A pottery type characterized by lavish graphite
burnishing (later polychrome/band & panel ware)

• Economy based on crop cultivation and domestic

animal herding with emphasis on cattle

• Evidence of substantial participation in

international trade
 Mapungubwe State (Mapela)?
• Mapungubwe state with capital at Mapungubwe
centre previously believed to be southern Africa’s
earliest state system AD 1050-1200

• Based in the Shashe-Limpopo basin

• Developed from participation in external trade

based on export of ivory and import of exotic goods
(glass beads/ceramics)
Mapungubwe site
Shashi-Limpopo basin
Important material
culture recovered from
Mapungubwe
• Developed as a result of accumulation of large
herds of cattle with onset of favourable
climatic/environmental conditions around
900/1000 AD and agric intensification

• Declined and collapsed as value of ivory on external

market was overtaken by gold

• Decline and collapse the direct result of the rise of

the Zimbabwe state north of the Limpopo?

• Was there a causal relationship?

 ZIMBABAWE STATE c. AD 1100 - 1650
• Once believed to have succeeded Mapungubwe
state

• However no longer seen as direct political

successor

• State based in southern Zimbabwe plateau with

capital at Great Zimbabwe
ZIMBABWE STATE
The Great Enclosure, Great Zimbabwe
site
19th century reconstructed Shona Village at
Great Zimbabwe
Origins and development of the
Zimbabwe culture

• EXTERNAL ORIGIN/SECONDARY STATE HYPOTHESIS

• Trade hypothesis – State developed out of vast

wealth from participation in international trade via
the East African Indian Ocean coast

• Hypothesis rooted in the single prime-mover

monocausal approach
• Trade mainly based on export of gold from rich
goldfields on the Zimbabwe plateau

• Gold replaced ivory in value on international market

and GZ out-competed centre of power in Shashi-
Limpopo basin (Mapungubwe)

• Imported exotic goods represented a new form of

wealth

• Used by emerging elites as springboard to socio-

political control/power over other people and
resources
• There is abundant evidence of participation in long
distance trade at GZ and related sites

• Glass beads, ceramics including Chinese blue-on-white

porcelain.

• Early Arab documents (9th/10th Century AD refer to

importance of cloth/silk as an import.

• Later Portuguese documents (15th C) mention

“mochiras” as a major import into the Mutapa state
• Cloth not usually recovered archaeologically in
southern Africa

• Links between GZ and East African coast

confirmed by recovery at GZ of a 14th C. coin
minted at the coastal city of Kilwa

• External trade clearly a major branch of the

state economy
Coins from Kilwa recovered from Great
Zimbabwe – External (regional trade)
External trade
Glass beads
Imported ceramics – Chinese blue on
white porcelain
Great Zimbabwe – Exotic or
Indigenous??
Great Zimbabwe & Queen of
Sheba
INDIGENOUS DEVELOPMENT - PRIMARY STATE
• Ideological background
• Transition from EFC egalitarian society to LFC ranked
societies occasioned by change in ideology
Indigenous economies
• Archaeologically attested increase in wealth through
accumulation of large herds of cattle
• Cattle a source of economic and social power and an
avenue to political power
• C. K. Brain. 1974.
• C. Thorp. 1984. – “Faunal remains as evidence of social
stratification”
• 1995. “Kings, Commoners and Cattle”
Cattle and other local productions and
economic activities were critical in the
development of the Zimbabwe state
Cattle were even exchanged for beads in
other circumstances
• Agricultural intensification occasioned
economic growth

• Population growth

• Need for resources management

• Food constitutes the basis of survival of any

socio-political formation
• Control over iron mining and related
developments in craft specialization an avenue
to economic and political power.
•
• Archaeologically attested at GZ by the presence
of a variety of worked products

• Bronze, iron, sculptor items of utilitarian and

symbolic value
Zim Birds as craft specialisation
Regional trade & exchange
• Regional trade links archaeologically attested by
presence of copper products at GZ from as far away
as the Zambian Copper Belt/Shaba province in DRC

• Copper ingots used as a form of currency in Central

African trading systems
Regional Trade - Copper ingots
Religion

Religion has always been part and parcel of statecraft

among African societies and beyond

• Possession of supernatural power/control of the

supernatural an avenue/basis for political power

• GZ a religious centre but monumental stone walls

not constructed for a religious purpose
Shona Traditional Religion
INTEGRATIONIST HYPOTHESIS
Multi-causal systemic approach

• Ideological change
• Growth in indigenous economies
(Cattle/Agric/mining)
• Regional trade
• External trade a catalyst
• Population growth
Archaeological identity and Organisation of the state

• Organised at several levels

• At least three levels archaeologically defined based
on identification of stone capital sites of different
size and complexity
• GZ - capital and seat of power
• Provincial capitals
• Local centres
• Huffman has argued for 5 levels but criteria unclear
• Actual territorial extent of state unclear

• Largely assumed on basis of distribution of

Zimbabwe type buildings of different sizes

• Garlake used geographical technique of

construction of Theissen polygons to
approximate extent and organisation

• Sinclair – Fuzzy Set Cluster Analysis

Summary - Archaeological definition

• Monumental architecture
• Settlement hierarchy – complex political
organisation
• Socio-political differentiation
• Stratified society
• Rural and urban societiey
• Well integrated and very successful economy based
on agric, large scale cattle herding/small stock,
regional & external trade
• Craft specialisation

• Political power with a probable strong religious

base

• Large population – extensive territory

ZIMBABWE STATE DECLINE & COLLAPSE

• GZ city abandoned around mid 15th C

• Environmental collapse of site territory

• Economic collapse (loss of trade to Mutapa state

developing in the north)

• Political collapse/crisis

• Population dispersal
POST – ZIMBABWE STATE SYSTEMS

• TORWA (SW Zimbabwe/NE Botswana - Khami)

• MUTAPA (N. Zimbabwe – Mutota, Kasekete, Chiwawa)

• ROZVI/CHANGAMIRE (Central Zimbabwe –

Dhlodhlo/Danangombe, Naletale, Regina/Zinjanja)

• VENDA (Northern SA – Touyandou, Tulamela)

• Nambya NW Zimbabwe
Khami – Torwa state
Khami house platforms
Mutapa State –

Evidence of shifting capitals from

Zvongombe site in northern
Zimbabwe plateau to the Zambezi
valley
 Mutapa: Solid daga houses,
Zvongombe, Centenary. N. Zimbabwe
Kasekete: Mutapa, Mid-Zambezi
Valley
Rozvi State – Capitals at Naletale,
Danangombe & Regina
 Venda state
Capitals at Dzata & Tulamela
Nambya: Zimbabwe Culture State NW
Zimbabwe
• Shejere-Nyabezi, P. et al. (forthcoming) Style,
Chronology & Culture: Matters arising from
an assessment of Zimbabwe Culture stone
buildings in Hwange District, North-Western
Zimbabwe. South African Archaeological
Bulletin
Oral history Nambya state capitals sequenc

Shangano

Mtao

Bumbusi
• Cultural successors to Zimbabwe state (no longer
regarded as direct political successors)

• All indicate similar characteristics (ranked societies,

stone built capitals, hierarchical political
organization reflected by hierarchical spatial
organization - at least 3 levels)

• Similar economic and other factors (cattle herding,

agric production, mining, regional/international
trade, religion, large population)

• Similar developmental trajectories