Great Zimbabwe and its Legacy

Art History ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Dewey
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Considerable Change ◽  
Tsetse Fly ◽  
World Heritage Site ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Seasonal Movement ◽  
Great Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe is arguably one of the largest (area-wise), and most impressive archaeological sites in southern Africa. While not the first southern African site to use stone walls in its architectural plan (the slightly earlier site of Mapungubwe holds that distinction), this World Heritage site is without doubt the most often visited, photographed, and studied archeological site in southern Africa. The dressed granite blocks were assembled without mortar into structures of impressive dimensions. The walls in the Great Enclosure are eleven meters high, six meters thick at their base, four meters at the top, and the circumference of the structure is 255 meters. Great Zimbabwe was the largest of many other smaller zimbabwes (or houses of stone) from the same period. All are located on the edge of the plateau, so as to be at the center of the annual seasonal movement of cattle between the highlands and lowlands (to avoid tsetse fly and sleeping sickness problems). Gold (and probably iron) was mined, worked, and traded internally and externally, but the real wealth of Great Zimbabwe was in the huge herds of cattle they controlled. From radiocarbon dates we know that the area around Great Zimbabwe was settled by the 5th century of the Christian era. Early walls were built in the 13th century, and people continued to inhabit the site till the 1500s, and perhaps longer. Most agree that the peak of economic prosperity, and when the majority of the building was done, was the period between 1300 and 1450. Great Zimbabwe’s decline was probably gradual, as power moved to states in the southwest (Butua and Khami) and northeast (Mutapa). Interpretation of Great Zimbabwe has undergone considerable change over the years from the early insistence on foreign construction, to the current accepted understanding of it being the result of local African development. Names of structures at the site have also changed with time (e.g., Circular Ruins, Elliptical Ruins, Elliptical Temple, Imba Huru [Great House] and Great Enclosure for the same structure), so it is imperative that researchers be cognizant of the historical context (colonial, white settler, post-independent times, etc.) of when they were written. The most famous material finds from Great Zimbabwe are the carved soapstone (or steatite, a type of talc-schist rock) birds. Because of the popularity of the topic of Great Zimbabwe and the long history of coverage, there are many thousands of citations relating to Great Zimbabwe. Much of the research has been dominated by historians and archaeologists. Art historians seeking to understand the material culture, especially architecture and sculptural objects, will not find much in Art Historical literature and instead will need to be more interdisciplinary and explore the research of these and other disciplines

A Bayesian chronology for Great Zimbabwe: re-threading the sequence of a vandalised monument

Antiquity ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 87 (337) ◽  
pp. 854-872 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shadreck Chirikure ◽  
Mark Pollard ◽  
Munyaradzi Manyanga ◽  
Foreman Bandama
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Sociopolitical Complexity ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Great Zimbabwe ◽  
The World ◽  
Stone Walls

Great Zimbabwe is one of the most iconic sites in southern Africa and indeed the world, but like so many famous monuments it has suffered from the attention of early excavators who have destroyed key categories of evidence. Chronology is crucial to understanding the development of the various elements of Great Zimbabwe and its relationship to other important regional centres such as Mapungubwe. A number of radiocarbon dates are available, however, and in this study they have been combined with the limited stratigraphic information and with datable imports to provide a Bayesian chronology of the site and its structures. Construction of the stone walls probably began at the end of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century AD, reaching its peak in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, although occupation continued up to at least the sixteenth and probably into the seventeenth century AD. These results indicate that occupation at Great Zimbabwe must have overlapped with that at Mapungubwe, and argue for a polycentric model of sociopolitical complexity in this region of southern Africa during that crucial formative period.

scholarly journals Some recent radiocarbon dates from Southern Africa

1980 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Hall ◽  
J. C. Vogel
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
East Coast ◽  
Coastal Areas ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
The South ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
The Past ◽  
Hunting And Gathering ◽  
Great Zimbabwe

In this paper we review radiocarbon dates which have become available over the past three years for the more recent archaeological sites south of the Cunene and Limpopo Rivers, assessing the determinations within the broader context of economy and society. For a framework, we make use of broad physiographic divisions of southern Africa, thus breaking from the artificial constraints of modern political divisions and allowing greater possibilities of synthesisWithin the set of new dates there are several fields in which recent radiocarbon determinations have been particularly important. The nature of hunting and gathering and herding communities in the arid western regions of the sub-continent is now more fully understood and more information is available about the succession of lithic industries in the south-western interior. In the south-eastern coastal areas the geographical extent of the earliest farming communities has been firmly dated. New determinations are beginning to provide a firmer chronology for the succession of ceramic industries in the east, and reassessment of the dating of the important sites of Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe demands a revision of concepts of early state development and trading contact with the east coast.

The Dorset-Thule Succession in Arctic North America: Assessing Claims for Culture Contact

1993 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Park
Keyword(s):  
Technology Transfer ◽  
North America ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Conclusive Evidence ◽  
Culture Contact ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The People

Most Arctic archaeologists believe that the people of the Thule culture, who arrived in the eastern Arctic approximately 1,000 years ago, met people of the Dorset culture and acquired important knowledge from them while replacing them in this region. The most convincing indication for technology transfer comes from the Thule adoption of Dorset harpoon-head styles. However, a review of radiocarbon dates, artifact styles, and site data reveals no conclusive evidence for face-to-face contact between the people of these two cultures. Given evidence that the Thule actively salvaged harpoon heads and carvings from abandoned Dorset sites, I contend that salvage was the sole means of contact between these cultures and the means by which harpoon-head technology was transferred. This example points out the importance of salvage as a mode of culture contact and the weakness of studies that interpret changes in material culture solely in a culture-historical context.

scholarly journals Temple occupation and the tempo of collapse at Angkor Wat, Cambodia

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (25) ◽  
pp. 12226-12231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison K. Carter ◽  
Miriam T. Stark ◽  
Seth Quintus ◽  
Yijie Zhuang ◽  
Hong Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bayesian Modeling ◽  
World Heritage Site ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Heritage Site ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Residential Use ◽  
Historical Sequences

The 9th–15th century Angkorian state was Southeast Asia’s greatest premodern empire and Angkor Wat in the World Heritage site of Angkor is one of its largest religious monuments. Here we use excavation and chronometric data from three field seasons at Angkor Wat to understand the decline and reorganization of the Angkorian Empire, which was a more protracted and complex process than historians imagined. Excavation data and Bayesian modeling on a corpus of 16 radiocarbon dates in particular demand a revised chronology for the Angkor Wat landscape. It was initially in use from the 11th century CE with subsequent habitation until the 13th century CE. Following this period, there is a gap in our dates, which we hypothesize signifies a change in the use of the occupation mounds during this period. However, Angkor Wat was never completely abandoned, as the dates suggest that the mounds were in use again in the late 14th–early 15th centuries until the 17th or 18th centuries CE. This break in dates points toward a reorganization of Angkor Wat’s enclosure space, but not during the historically recorded 15th century collapse. Our excavation data are consistent with multiple lines of evidence demonstrating the region’s continued ideological importance and residential use, even after the collapse and shift southward of the polity’s capital. We argue that fine-grained chronological analysis is critical to building local historical sequences and illustrate how such granularity adds nuance to how we interpret the tempo of organizational change before, during, and after the decline of Angkor.

THE LATER PREHISTORY OF THE SHAHRIZOR PLAIN, KURDISTAN REGION OF IRAQ: FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS AT GURGA CHIYA AND TEPE MARANI

Iraq ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 41-71
Author(s):  
Robert Carter ◽  
David Wengrow ◽  
Saber Ahmed Saber ◽  
Sami Jamil Hamarashi ◽  
Mary Shepperson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Kurdistan Region ◽  
Ceramic Assemblage ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Northern Iraq ◽  
Halaf Period ◽  
Adjacent Site ◽  
Related Series ◽  
Southern Iraq

The Shahrizor Prehistory Project has targeted prehistoric levels of the Late Ubaid and Late Chalcolithic 4 (LC4; Late Middle Uruk) periods at Gurga Chiya (Shahrizor, Kurdistan region of northern Iraq), along with the Halaf period at the adjacent site of Tepe Marani. Excavations at the latter have produced new dietary and environmental data for the sixth millennium B.C. in the region, while at Gurga Chiya part of a burned Late Ubaid tripartite house was excavated. This has yielded a promising archaeobotanical assemblage and established a benchmark ceramic assemblage for the Shahrizor Plain, which is closely comparable to material known from Tell Madhhur in the Hamrin valley. The related series of radiocarbon dates gives significant new insights into the divergent timing of the Late Ubaid and early LC in northern and southern Mesopotamia. In the following occupation horizon, a ceramic assemblage closely aligned to the southern Middle Uruk indicates convergence of material culture with central and southern Iraq as early as the LC4 period. Combined with data for the appearance of Early Uruk elements at sites in the adjacent Qara Dagh region, this hints at long-term co-development of material culture during the fourth millennium B.C. in southeastern Iraqi Kurdistan and central and southern Iraq, potentially questioning the model of expansion or colonialism from the south.

scholarly journals Diachronic modeling of the population within the medieval Greater Angkor Region settlement complex

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (19) ◽  
pp. eabf8441
Author(s):  
Sarah Klassen ◽  
Alison K. Carter ◽  
Damian H. Evans ◽  
Scott Ortman ◽  
Miriam T. Stark ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Demographic History ◽  
Machine Learning Algorithms ◽  
Archaeological Excavation ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Ancient Civilization ◽  
Demographic Study ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
The City

Angkor is one of the world’s largest premodern settlement complexes (9th to 15th centuries CE), but to date, no comprehensive demographic study has been completed, and key aspects of its population and demographic history remain unknown. Here, we combine lidar, archaeological excavation data, radiocarbon dates, and machine learning algorithms to create maps that model the development of the city and its population growth through time. We conclude that the Greater Angkor Region was home to approximately 700,000 to 900,000 inhabitants at its apogee in the 13th century CE. This granular, diachronic, paleodemographic model of the Angkor complex can be applied to any ancient civilization.

scholarly journals American Wedding Albums: a Case Study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisa Catherina D’Agostino
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Main Section ◽  
Specific Focus ◽  
Popular Medium ◽  
Production Organization ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Wedding photography is an area of vernacular studies that receives surprisingly little scholarly attention. This thesis explores the material culture of wedding photography, with a specific focus on the analysis of the wedding album in terms of presentation and consumption by families from the 1950s to the 1980s. The main section of this thesis provides an examination of selected wedding album owners. This case study contains a collection of oral histories from seven individuals on their experiences with presenting and displaying their wedding photographs. The analysis provides qualitative research on the production, organization, and consumption of the wedding album as a popular medium for exhibiting wedding photographs. In addition, this thesis offers some social and historical context on the development of the wedding album and wedding photography.

scholarly journals Armenians on the Via Francigena: Armenian and Latin Sources on the Origins of the Armenian Community of Orvieto (Urbs Vetus)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Pambakian ◽  
Lidia Zanetti Domingues
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
The Church

An Armenian religious community settled in Orvieto in the 13th century and founded the church and hospice of Santo Spirito, where they provided hospitality to pilgrims on the Via Francigena. Archaeological traces of their presence include a travertine gate with a trilingual inscription, reused in the church of San Domenico (Orvieto), the remains of the church of Santo Spirito, and art pieces removed from the latter. Contemporary Latin documents and an analysis of the historical context suggest that the Armenian presence was well-received by the lay and clerical authorities, and even held as prestigious.

scholarly journals Kreatywność za drutem kolczastym: archeologia i sztuka okopowa z pierwszowojennego obozu jenieckiego w Czersku (woj. pomorskie)

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 105-136
Author(s):  
Dawid Kobiałka
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
The Third ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
Special Category

This article discusses the results of archaeological and anthropological research concerning material remains of a prisoner of war camp in Czersk (Pomeranian province, Poland) (Kriegsgefangenenlager Czersk). In the first part, I sketch a broader historical context related to building and functioning of the camp in forests around Czersk between 1914–1919. After that, the role and meaning of  archaeological research on such type of archaeological sites are presented. In the third part, I focus on a very special category of the camp heritage which is called trench art. The last part of this paper is a case study where an assemblage of objects classified as trench art that was found at the camp is described and interpreted. This text aims at highlighting the value of such prisoners and camp’s heritage. Such material culture is a material memory of extraordinary prisoners’ creativity behind barbed wire. It makes one aware of how every piece of trash, rubbish was re-cycled during day-to-day life behind barbed wire.

scholarly journals Protection in Life and Death: Pendant Crosses from the Cemetery of Apollo Klarios at Sagalassos, Turkey

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-298
Author(s):  
Sam Cleymans ◽  
Peter Talloen
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Popular Religion ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Western Turkey ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Funerary Rites ◽  
And Function ◽  
Shed Light

This article presents the different types of pendant crosses found in the burials of a Middle Byzantine graveyard at the Pisidian settlement of Sagalassos in south-western Turkey. The aim is to study both the chronology and function of these pectoral crosses. A variety of sources are used, ranging from stratigraphy and radiocarbon dates to contextual information and skeletal data. The crosses could be broadly dated to between the eleventh and thirteenth century AD, thus providing an indication of the lifespan of the cemetery. Moreover, the typological evolution, which was corroborated by parallels from other sites in the Byzantine Empire, allowed us to establish a horizontal stratigraphy for the graveyard. The pectoral crosses discussed here shed light on the funerary practices in this part of the Byzantine world. These generally proved to belong to very young children. They constitute a category of material culture that not only provides insights into the lives of the Byzantine population, especially in early childhood, but are also the material manifestation of the intersection between popular religion, magic, and funerary rites.

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