UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

The beginnings of the iron age in southern Africa
tradition. Several human skeletons have been found on early iron age
Ziwa sites in this area and appear to show negroid physical characteristics.
37
Pottery apparently related to the final phases of the Ziwa tradition shows
a far more extensive distribution than does its earlier counterpart, being
recorded from a wide area of north-eastern Zimbabwe as far to the west as
the Salisbury district. The pottery recovered from the Golden Shower
gold mine at Arcturus appears to be best attributed to a late manifestation
of the Ziwa tradition, possibly belonging to the last quarter of the first
millennium, but this attribution and dating should be regarded as tentative
pending further investigations. 38 The association of this type of pottery
with prehistoric mines is discussed in greater detail below.
The final phase of the early iron age in northern Mashonaland is best
represented by the sites at Chitope, some ioo kilometres north-north-west
of Salisbury, and at Maxton Farm near Shamva Hill. 39 Both sites are
attributed to around the eleventh century and are thought but briefly to
antedate the introduction into the area of the later iron age Musengezi
ware. The Maxton Farm site is situated on a kopje, the summit of which
is surrounded by a low stone wall 'built of large, loosely piled diorite
blocks, untrimmed, unselected and without packing or wedging'. 40
Upright monoliths were set into the top of the wall at frequent intervals
along its length. There is no reason to doubt the association of the wall
with the occupation of the settlement which it encloses.
Significant economic development is thus indicated in this area during
the later centuries of the early iron age. It is only in its later forms that
Ziwa ware is found associated with imported glass beads. Comparable
pottery is also found on sites with simple terraces and stone walling, as well
as on gold and copper mines, indicating that its makers were involved in
the more comprehensive exploitation of their territory's natural resources
than had been their predecessors, and also that they were in contact with the
trade network of the Indian Ocean.
It is at this time, too, that domestic cattle are first attested in the
archaeological record of Zimbabwe. Remains of these animals are markedly
absent from sites of the earliest phase of iron age settlement south of the
Zambezi, where the only domestic species represented are sheep and
goats. Cattle are first recorded on sites dated to the eighth century. They
do not, however, become frequent before the inception of the later iron
age. 41
Centred on Bulawayo, the sites yielding Zhiso-type pottery have much
37. F. O. Bernhard, 1961, pp. 84-92; 1964; H. de Villiers, pp. 17-28.
38. J. F. Schofield; T. N. Huffman, 1974, pp. 238-42.
39. P. S. Garlake, 1967, 1969.
40. P. S. Garlake, 1967, p. 3; 1969.
41. T. N. Huffman, 1973.
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