States And Socities In Subsaharan Africa - Great Zimbabwe

STATES AND SOCITIES IN SUBSAHARAN AFRICA HIST 1301 | History Great Zimbabwe The Shona, a Bantu-speaking Iron Age people who originally arrived in southern Africa in the second century CE, are the founders of Great Zimbabwe. Similar to Leopard's Kopje and Mapungubwe, the area's wealth of natural resources and position on the southwest border of the Zimbabwean plateau drew livestockherders as the first inhabitants. Here the Shona discovered enough of lumber for building and fuel, as well as well-watered, fertile soil suitable for farming, surrounded by temperate grasslands perfect for seasonal grazing. There is evidence that dates back to the third century, when they domesticated goats, sheep, and cattle. The earliest people to live in the area were not the Shona; rather, it was the tiny groups of hunter-gatherers that roamed the plain and pursued wildlife centuries before the advent of the Bantu speakers. The Shona were unable to totally overthrow these hunter-gatherers despite possessing better iron technology, which led to tension and warfare that continues to this day. Bantu villages that mined and produced iron as well as cultivated the valley emerged throughout the five centuries that separated the fourth and ninth century. They are the earliest Iron Age inhabitants of the region that archaeologists have been able to identify. They lived in mud huts or reed thatch homes. The Shona made primitive pottery, leather for clothes, jewellery out of copper and gold, iron for weapons and farming implements, and other items throughout this time. They exchanged many of these items for commodities like seashells, glass beads, and salt with residents of coastal villages. The civilization of the Zimbabwean plateau was flourishing by the eleventh century, and drystone buildings—that is, structures made of interlocking stones rather than mortar—started to appear. The locals had developed a thriving mixed farming economy, raising livestock and going hunting for the plentiful wildlife in the area. Trade was by far the most significant contributor to Great Zimbabwe's riches and influence. The city was perfectly situated to take advantage of the long-distance trade between the western plateau goldfields and Sofala, a Swahili centre that linked Zimbabwean trade commodities to the island of Kilwa. The capital was situated at the top of the Sabi River basin. Kilwa was the richest of all the Swahili city-states, thanks to gold from Zimbabwe. At the marketplaces and fairs set up on the Zimbabwean plateau, Swahili merchants traded exotic luxury items like Chinese Ming porcelain and carved faience (ceramicware) from Persia for gold, copper, and ivory. Large-scale stone building construction started in the eleventh century and lasted for around three centuries. The most well-known ancient ruins in southern Africa are these stone constructions. The Hill Complex is the oldest. Perched atop a roughly 260-foot-tall natural rise, this castle probably offered the Shona people a place to carry out ceremonies and seek refuge during tumultuous times, though its precise function remains unclear. Some academics have proposed that it served as a place of ancestor worship; others have proposed that it was a chiefs' burial ground or perhaps the location of a royal palace. Regardless of its original use, the site is remarkable, and its prominence undoubtedly connects it to a significant facet of Zimbabwean culture. For generations, tourists have been awed by the remnants of the Great Zimbabwe. Located at the centre of the civilization, the Great Enclosure is a gigantic elliptical edifice with walls made of drystone that are up to seventeen feet thick and thirty-five feet high. It was constructed during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and is still partially intact today. South of the Sahara, it is the biggest ancient monument in Africa, situated in the valley under the Hill Complex. "Among the gold mines of the inland plains between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers there is a fortress built of stones of marvellous size, and there appears to be no mortar joining them," the sixteenth-century Portuguese explorer Vicente Pegado wrote upon seeing the ruins. This structure is nearly encircled by hills, upon which rest others that mimic it in the way that stone is shaped and the lack of cement; among them is a tower rising to a height of over twelve fathoms. The locals refer to these buildings as Symbaoe, which means "court" in their language. The Great Enclosure underwent extensive restoration during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with the installation of its circular drystone wall being the most notable change. At the top of the wall, which faces the Hill Complex across the valley, is a primary entry portal that slopes slightly inward. Several additional openings imply that the wall was not a fortification. A secondary wall that runs the length of the Great Enclosure directs visitors to a conical stone tower that is about sixteen feet broad and thirty-two feet high. With a perimeter of 820 feet, the Great Enclosure may have served as a royal home, judging from its size, and the tower may have served as a granary (grain was a major form of tribute employed by Shona monarchs). It is at these two sites, the Hill Complex and the Great Enclosure, that archaeologists have discovered the most remarkable and opulent objects, such as soapstone figures, intricately carved ivory, copper ingots, and bracelets. In the valley between the Hill Complex and the Great Enclosure are several more stone houses. High stone walls surround these ruins, which also include the remnants of massive circular mud homes that were around twenty feet high and thirty-two feet in diameter. The presence of these Valley Ruins indicates that when Great Zimbabwe prospered, the town along the valley bottom probably expanded considerably. The three locations together occupy around 1,700 acres, and the way their structures are arranged spatially points to a hierarchical society of about 18,000 people under the control of a ruling class or other central authority. The thirteenth and sixteenth centuries saw the height of Great Zimbabwe's prosperity. The precise composition and character of its administration and society remain unknown, as is the case with many other facets of the civilization. According to academics, it was ruled by men, and the size of a family's herd of cattle served as a factor in their competition for influence and power. The number of wives and, thus, the amount of labour available to a man were connected with herd size. In this community, women were supposed to take care of the crops, harvest them, cook, and get water. Men without women worked as hunters, herders, and fabric makers. Men without property frequently developed a dependence on the more affluent members of society. Zimbabwean culture was ruled by a chief or king, who was probably the richest person in the community. However, because the Shona tradition said that the chiefship was inherited, being a chief may not have meant that a person was extremely wealthy. The fact that the chief lacked an army implies that he had to rule by coming to an agreement with the dominant male members of the society and any other chiefs who could have been subservient. Grandiose stone structures are a sign of political authority, at least the kind that could organise and manage labour and resources, but all of this is conjectural. Similar trends led to the development of mediaeval African society in both West and Southern Africa. Small communities of livestock caretakers and herders began to give rise to burgeoning, more intricate political structures in the sixth century. Societies around the Limpopo River in South Africa and the Niger River in West Africa were sustained by advances in agriculture and metallurgy. These settlements grew as a result of the development and exploitation of commerce, which started with small-scale trade routes connecting commercial centres and ended with control over large areas of land. Despite the brief lifespan of some of these kingdoms (Mapungubwe, for instance, lasted just around 80 years), these kingdoms played a crucial role in the history of mediaeval Africa by providing links to people, places, and civilizations hundreds of kilometres distant. Ultimately, these kingdoms connected African economies, both local and regional, to a global network of trade and commerce spanning Europe, Asia, and Arabia.