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Pastoralism and Zimbabwe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

P. S. Garlake
P. S. Garlake
Affiliation:
University College, London
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Extract

Excavations at the Zimbabwe (enclosure) of Manekweni, in southern coastal Mozambique, have shown that it belongs to the Zimbabwe Culture which was centred on the Rhodesian plateau. Occupation levels have been dated to between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries. The faunal evidence indicates that a section of the population benefited from intensive beef production through transhumant pastoralism on the seasonally-fluctuating fringes of tsetse fly infestation. The settlement pattern of Rhodesian Zimbabwe suggests that their siting was determined by the demands of a similar system of transhumance. This model provides a basis from which to begin to reconstruct some aspects of the economies of early Zimbabwe. It is already clear that Zimbabwe were not simply the products of long-distance trade; rather, their economies integrated farming and cattle-herding as well as gold production and foreign trade.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , October 1978 , pp. 479 - 493
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 Zimbabwe is used here for later Iron Age enclosures built and occupied by Shona ruling groups. Madzimbabwe is the more correct plural form.

2 G. Barker, ‘Economic models for the Manekweni Zimbabwe, Mozambique’, Azania, forthcoming.

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6 The full Manekweni dates, in the order in which they appear in this text, are: 1180 a.d. ±90 (HAR-1240), 1200 a.d.±100 (HAR-1285), 1170 a.d.±80 (HAR-1255), 1460 a.d.± 70 (HAR-1814), 1520 a.d.±70 (HAR-1815), 1360 a.d.±70 (HAR-1252), 1350 a.d. ± 70 (HAR-1254), 1450 a.d.± (HAR-1253), 1380 a.d.±70 (HAR-1816), 1540 a.d.±70 (HAR-1813), 1600 a.d.±80 (HAR-1812), 1600 a.d.±70 (HAR-1818), 1700 a.d.±70 (HAR-1817), and 1610 a.d.±70 (HAR-1250).

7 The excavations were based on a 2.50 metre grid. All excavated squares mentioned here had sides of 2 m.

8 Cf. Garlake, P. S., Great Zimbabwe (London, 1973), 133–4Google Scholar; Vansina, J., ‘The Bells of Kings’, J. Afr. Hist. x (1969), 187–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 6411 stratified sherds were recovered, 504 of them decorated. 141 of the latter came from Phase 3 deposits.

10 The total number of bone fragments recovered was 11,626 of which 3,279 were identifiable. These represented a minimum number of 471 individual food animals.

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20 Ibid., 500–1.

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