Zimbabwe: Early history (100 000 BP - 1000 CE)

Updated December 2007

Despite the abundance of evidence of early Hominina occupation from its neighbours in South Africa, Botswana and Zambia, not such evidence has emerged as yet in Zimbabwe. Indeed, the earliest dateable evidence is of true humans practicing a Stone Age culture only some 100 000 years ago who were ancestral to the modern San people (Encyclopedia of the Nations 2007, Garlake 1987, 4). Archaeologically unearthed evidence include stone implements and arrow-heads, while tens of thousands of sites containing rock paintings throughout Zimbabwe yield clues to their social, ethical and religious lives (Wikipedia 2007; Garlake 1987, 1). Changes in economic activity and technology are also indicated in the art, such as the emergence of the domestication and herding of sheep by 200 BC, while archaelogical evidence indicates the introduction of pottery at about the same time (Garlake 1987, 2).

Dating these art works is difficult, but the earliest, in the Cave of Bees at Matopos Hills, is thought to have been produced about 10 500 years ago (Thackeray 1983; Garlake 1987, 1-2). Over 3 000 sites alone have been catalogued at Matopos Hills alone, with two major periods of painting activity established, form the 8th to the 6th millennium BC and then again from 200 BCE to 500 CE (Hyland & Umenne 2006, 3-4). Garlake (1987, 3) observes: "The art of Zimbabwe is older, more abundant, more varied, more densely layered and more complex than any elsewhere in southern Africa". Studies of the work indicate that it was not intended as representational, but rather symbolic, expressing abstract ideas about social roles and the place of humans along with plants and animals in the greater order of things, as well as about the trance state that occupied the centre of their shamanistic religious life (Garlake 1987, 6, 30, 32).

Archaeological evidence indicates that iron working cultures were present dating back at least to 300 CE and perhaps as far back as 180 CE (Encyclopedia of the Nations 2007; Columbia Encyclopedia 2005). This is taken as indications of the penetration of the earliest Bantu groups into Zimbabwe from the north (Encyclopedia of the Nations 2007; Wikipedia 2007). These lived in small groups in settled villages in non-defensible locations and practiced a mixed economy that combined hunting with herding of cattle, sheep and goats and farming of grain, perhaps sorghum and millet (Encyclopedia of the Nations 2007; Owen 2000; Pwiti 33). Production of iron goods and tools was localised, with each settlement producing its own arrow heads, knives and jewellery, while some copper was fashioned into beads and jewellery. Findings of marine shells and glass beads indicate that they formed part of a wider regional trade network (Owen 2000).

The communities were thus economically self-sufficient and politically independent of one another. The social structure would have been relatively egalitarian, with labour specialisation and social differentiation based on age and gender (Pwiti 1996, 34). However, towards the end of the first millennium there is evidence of cattle herds began to increase in size and evidence of trade with the Indian Ocean trade network, such as glass beads, begins to emerge; all of which point to greater inequalities in wealth and higher degrees of social stratification (Pwiti 1996, 34).

Though the penetration of the Bantu people placed pressure on the San by dispossessing them of some of their hunting grounds, relations between the two societies seem to have been largely peaceful and they seem to have co-existed up until about 1000 BCE, though some San may have been absorbed into the culture of the new-comers. However, as population levels rose and greater areas were settled, the San were eventually absorbed or displaced; today there are only 1200 San people left in Zimbabwe, concentrated in the west, who have been forced to become subsistence farmers since they are prohibited by law from hunting (IRIN 2007).

References

COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA 2005, "Zimbabwe" Sixth Edition, [www] http://www.bartelby.org/65/zi/Zimbabwe.html [opens new window] (accessed 6 Dec 2007).

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NATIONS 2007 "Zimbabwe: History", [www] http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Africa/Zimbabwe-HISTORY.html [opens new window] (accessed 6 Dec 2007).

GARLAKE, PS 1987 "Structure and Meaning in the Prehistoric Art of Zimbabwe", 17th Annual Mans Woolf Memorial Lecture, India University, [www] https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/2022/292/1/Structure_Garlake.pdf [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 6 Dec 2007).

HYLAND, ADC & UMENNE, SIK 2006 "Place, Tradition And Memory: Tangible Aspects of the Intangible Heritage in the Cultural Landscapes of Zimbabwe: A case study of the Matobo Hills", Presented at the Forum UNESCO University and Heritage 10th International Seminar Cultural Landscapes in the 21st Century, NewcastleuponTyne, April 2005 (Revised: July 2006), [www] http://www.ncl.ac.uk/unescolandscapes/files/UMENNESampson%20HYLANDAnthony.pdf [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 6 Dec 2007).

IRIN 2007 "Zimbabwe: The San help themselves out of poverty", 17 January [www] http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=64490 [opens new window] (accessed 6 Dec 2007).

OWEN, B 2000 "Great Zimbabwe", [www] http://bruceowen.com/worldprehist/3250s14.htm [opens new window] (accessed 6 Dec 2007).

PWITI, G 1996 "Peasants, Chiefs and Kings: A Model of the Development of Cultural Complexity in Northern Zimbabwe", Zambezia, 23(1), [www] http://archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/African%20Journals/pdfs/Journal%20of%20the%20 University%20of%20Zimbabwe/vol23n1/juz023001004.pdf [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 6 Dec 2007).

THACKERAY, AI 1983 "Dating the rock art of Southern Africa", South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series, 4, 21-26.

WIKIPEDIA 2007 "Pre-colonial history of Zimbabwe", [www] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-colonial_history_of_Zimbabwe [opens new window] (accessed 6 Dec 2007).