UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Ancient Civilizations of Africa
occur in the eastern parts of Zimbabwe, in the valleys of the Mazoe and the
Sabi. Both these rivers provide relatively easy communications between the
interior and the coast. The writings of Arab geographers leave no doubt
that, from this initial period of gold-mining, the metal was exported.
Whether it was also used locally at this period is not yet clear. In this
context it is significant that the commencement of gold-mining and the introduction
of imported glass beads appears to have been broadly
synchronous. If the two events are indeed connected, the stimulus for the
development of gold-mining may well have been primarily external.
Summers's contention 73 that it was specifically from India that the techniques
and, by implication, some of the miners were derived, is, however,
unconvincing in the present state of our knowledge. Although the initiation
of the exploitation of Zimbabwean gold may safely be attributed to a late
phase of the early iron age, it was not until yet later times that mining
was undertaken on a really substantial scale.
Architecture
Only a few sites have yielded information permitting the reconstruction of
architectural plans and structural details attributable to the early iron age in
this region; and there must remain some doubt as to the extent to which
these sites are characteristic of the architecture of southern Africa as a whole
during this period. Kumadzulo produced evidence of the plans of eleven
houses of pole-and-¿foga construction. These were sub-rectangular in outline
with substantial corner posts; the maximum wall-length was only 2-3
metres. No comparable evidence has been recovered from other early iron
age sites in southern Africa, but fragmentary traces from a number of other
sites such as Dambwa and Chitope suggest that the general method of
construction illustrated at Kumadzulo was frequently used, although the
sub-rectangular shape of the Kumadzulo houses cannot be paralleled
elsewhere.
Building in stone was widespread in the iron age in regions south of the
Zambezi, but the practice seems not to have spread into Zambia except on
a very small scale during the closing centuries of the later iron age. 74
As has been noted above, there is, however, some evidence that in
Zimbabwe building in stone was widespread during the early iron age
although on a much smaller and less elaborate scale than was subsequently
attained. Stone building, as has been shown, may be associated
with the Gokomere, later Ziwa and Zhiso sites. Undressed stone was
mainly employed at this time for building terrace and field walls and
73. R. Summers.
74. In Zambia, terrace walling has been reported from near Mazabuka on the southern
Province plateau; this, and the rough stone walling found on defensive sites in the Lusaka
area and in the southern part of the Eastern province, are probably all attributable to the
eighteenth or nineteenth centuries.
690