Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T00:55:29.703Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Reappraisal of the History of the Rhodesian Iron Age Up to the Fifteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

A. J. E. Jaffey
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The suggestions put forward in this paper may be summarized as follows. The linguistic, cultural and to some extent physical ancestors of the modern Bantu people south of the Zambezi, including the Shona, arrived in Rhodesia in the early part of the first millennium a.d. The B1 culture was not introduced by Shona migrants arriving in the eleventh century, but was a local development of the already existing Shona Iron Age A, attributable perhaps to prosperity gained from the gold trade. The B1 culture should not in fact be regarded as a separate culture from the A, that later fused with it, but as a variant of it, which because of the power and influence of those who developed and practised it eventually spread over a large area and became a common factor in the various local Shona cultures that had diverged, and continued to diverge, in the course of time.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , July 1966 , pp. 189 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Guthrie, Malcolm, ‘Some developments in the prehistory of the Bantu languages’, J. Afr. Hist. III, 2 (1962), 273–282;CrossRefGoogle ScholarIdem, ‘A two-stage method of comparative Bantu studies’, African Language Studies, III (London, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1962).

2 Guthrie, , J. Afr. Hist. III, 2 (1962), 278.Google Scholar

3 Doke, C. M., in Bantu-speaking tribes of South Africa (London, 1937).Google Scholar

4 Summers, Roger, ‘The Southern Rhodesian Iron Age’, J. Aft. Hist. II, I (1961), 6–7.Google Scholar

5 Schofield, J. F., Primitive Pottery (Capetown, 1948), 100;Google ScholarRobinson, K. R. in Summers, Robmson and Whitty, , ‘Zimbabwe excavations 1958’, Occ. Pap. Nat. Mus. S. Rhod. III (1961), 23A, 183, 191.Google Scholar

6 Fagan, Brian, ‘The Greefswald sequence: Bambandyanalo and Mapungubwe’, J. Afr. v, 3 (1964), 347.Google Scholar

7 Robinson, , ‘Four Rhodesian Iron Age sites, an account of stratigraphy and finds’, Occ. Pap. Nat. Miss. S. Rhod. iii (1958), 22A, 88;Google ScholarIdem, ‘The archaeology of the Rozwi’, Rhodes—Livingstone Institute, Lusaka, History of Central African Peoples Conference (1963), 6–7; Fagan, bc. cit.

8 ‘Radiocarbon dates for sub-Saharan Africa. III’, J. Afr. Hist. VI, I (1965), 109;Google Scholarcf. Tobias, Phillip V., ‘Skeletal remains from Inyanga’, in Summers, , Inyanga, Prehistoric Settlements in Southern Rhodesia, 165.Google Scholar

9 Greenberg, J. H., Languages of Africa (Indiana University, 1963), chap. II.Google Scholar

10 Summers, Robinson and Whitty, Zimbabwe Excavations.Google Scholar

11 ‘Radiocarbon dates for sub-Saharan Africa. III’, loc. cit. 108; Robinson, , ‘Further excavations in the Iron Age deposits at the Tunnel site, Gokomere Hill, Southern Rhodesia’, S. Afr. Archaeol. Bull. xviii (1963), 72, 160.Google Scholar

12 Robinson in Zimbabwe Excavations, 215.Google Scholar

13 See note 7 above; ‘Radiocarbon dates for sub-Saharan Africa. I’, J. Afr. Hist. II, I (1961), 138.Google Scholar

14 Summers, , J. Afr. Hist. II, I (1961), 13; ‘Radiocarbon dates for sub-Saharan Africa. III’, loc. Cit. 109.Google Scholar

15 Summers, loc. Cit. 6; Zimbabwe Excavations, 327; Fagan, loc. Cit. 35–78.Google Scholar

16 Abraham, D. P., ‘Maramuca: an exercise in the combined use of Portuguese records and oral tradition’, J. Afr. Hist. II, 2 (1961), 211.CrossRefGoogle ScholarIdem, ‘The political role of Chaminuka and the Mhondoro Cult in Shona History’, Rhodes—Livingstone Institute, History of Central African Peoples Conference (1963), 2–3; Wills, A. J., An Introduction to the History of Central Africa (London, 1964), 19.Google Scholar

17 Summers, loc. Cit. II.Google Scholar

18 Zimbabwe Excavations.Google Scholar

19 Robinson in Zimbabwe Excavations, 585.Google Scholar

20 Zimbabwe Excavations, 327;Google ScholarWhitty, A., ‘The origins of the stone architecture of Zimbabwe’, Third Pan-Afritan Congress on Prehistory, Livingstone 1955 (London, 1957), 366; Summers, loc. cit. 6.Google Scholar

21 Robinson, ‘The archaeology of the Rozwi’, loc. cit. 5.Google Scholar

22 Robinson in Zimbabwe Excavations, 18.Google Scholar

23 Ibid. 186.

24 Ibid. 186.

25 Ibid. 201, 204.

26 Ibid. 186.

27 Ibid. 186.

28 Ibid. 214; ‘The archaeology of the Rozwi’, 4.

29 Summers, , ‘The Iron Age cultures and early Bantu movements’, in Rhodesia and Nyasaland (London, 1960), 52.Google Scholar

30 Summers, . J. Afr. Hist. II, I (1961), 6–7.Google Scholar

31 Robinson, ‘The archaeology of the Rozwi’, 8.Google Scholar

32 Schofield, J. F., in Fouché, L., Mapungubwe (Cambridge, 1937), 32–102;Google ScholarRobinson in Zimbabwe Excavations, 216;Google ScholarFagan, , J. Afr. Hist. v, 3 (1964), 357–8.Google Scholar

33 ‘Radiocarbon dates for sub-Saharan Africa. I’, J. Afr. Hist. II, I (1961), 138.Google Scholar

34 Robinson, ‘The archaeology of the Rozwi’, 4.Google Scholar