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No Big Brother Here: Heterarchy, Shona Political Succession and the Relationship between Great Zimbabwe and Khami, Southern Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2017

Shadreck Chirikure ,
Tawanda Mukwende ,
Abigail J. Moffett ,
Robert T. Nyamushosho ,
Foreman Bandama  and
Michelle House
Shadreck Chirikure
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town Rondebosch, Cape Town 7701, South Africa Email: [email protected]
Tawanda Mukwende
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town Rondebosch, Cape Town 7701, South Africa Email: [email protected]
Abigail J. Moffett
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town Rondebosch, Cape Town 7701, South Africa Email: [email protected]
Robert T. Nyamushosho
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town Rondebosch, Cape Town 7701, South Africa Email: [email protected]
Foreman Bandama
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town Rondebosch, Cape Town 7701, South Africa Email: [email protected]
Michelle House
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town Rondebosch, Cape Town 7701, South Africa Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In southern Africa, there has been a long-standing but unsubstantiated assumption that the site of Khami evolved out of Great Zimbabwe's demise around ad 1450. The study of local ceramics from the two sites indicate that the respective ceramic traditions are clearly different across the entire sequence, pointing towards different cultural affiliations in their origins. Furthermore, there are tangible typological differences between and within their related dry-stone architecture. Finally, absolute and relative chronologies of the two sites suggest that Khami flourished as a major centre from the late fourteenth/early fifteenth century, long before Great Zimbabwe's decline. Great Zimbabwe also continued to be occupied into the late seventeenth and perhaps eighteenth centuries, after the decline of Khami. Consequently, the combined significance of these observations contradicts the parent-offspring relationship implied in traditional frameworks. Instead, as chronologically overlapping entities, the relationship between Khami and Great Zimbabwe, was heterarchical. However, within the individual polities, malleable hierarchies of control and situational heterarchies were a common feature. This is in tune with historically documented political relations in related pre-colonial southern Zambezian states, and motivates for contextual approaches to imagining power relations in pre-colonial African contexts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 45 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2017 

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