eBusiness Weekly
Great Zimbabwe is a World Heritage Site that has fascinated for centuries. This week we take a look at the results of new research being done at the site that questions its total population.
Remind me about Great Zimbabwe.
The site of Great Zimbabwe should be familiar to all Zimbabweans, given its importance as a symbol of indigenous pre-colonial wealth, power and stability, and also what it has come to mean for the modern nation today as a symbol of unity and identity.
The stone walls, enclosures, passages and rich variety of exotic trade goods fascinate researchers and visitors almost to the extent that all other details about the site remain a matter of conjecture rather than scientific fact.
Summarise what we “know” about the site.
Great Zimbabwe, one of the largest cities in Africa’s pre-colonial history, was built by the ancestors of today’s Shona peoples between 1250AD and 1550AD, occupying 2 9km2, the site is a technological marvel of mortarless stonework.
The walls were built over a period of time possibly to serve as symbols of the wealth and power of the ruling elite, who grew fat on their control over the vast trade networks they had developed.
Among other things, gold, ivory, iron, animal skins and salt flowed from the site to the East African coast where these were exchanged for cloth, perfumes, spices, intricate exotica and an ever changing array of glass beads, which functioned as a pseudo-currency in the region.
Much of the research during the last century either focused on proving the age and authors of the ruins, or the trade goods and networks to the extent of impeding all other investigation of other questions.
What population numbers are usually thrown about?
Great Zimbabwe is usually seen as a site with a massive population.
Early researchers speculated of a population numbering in the thousands without committing themselves to a precise estimate.
Archaeologist and nationalist Peter Garlake was the first to claim a precise number in his 1973 classic Great Zimbabwe.
Based on the average number of houses in a typical walled area at the site, and an estimate of the size of the residential area outside these stone walls where two huts belonged to an adult, he claimed that between 1,000 and 2,500 adults lived at the site; Garlake suggested that only 250 people actually lived within the stone enclosures.
Surely it must have been more than that?
Most people today will confidently assert that Great Zimbabwe’s population was at least 11,000 and maybe as much as 20,000 people during its peak.
That idea derives from the work of Tom Huffman who worked at the site in the 1970s and has continued his research.
In 1977, he estimated the population by extrapolating the number of huts inside and outside the stone walls, using a ratio of one adult per hut and collating this number to the population of Zimbabwe in the 1960s.
He revised this number to 18,000 in 1986 after accessing better demographic data for the pre-colonial period.
This number has been uncritically adopted, probably because of the grandeur of Great Zimbabwe and the excellent reputation of the researchers making these claims.
But what’s wrong with 18 000?
That number translates to a population density of over 6,800 in the 2.9km2 area, comparable to modern-day Hong Kong or Cape Town.
Despite the size of Great Zimbabwe, archaeological research has repeatedly shown that the entire site (as we see it today) was not built and occupied at the same time.
For example, much of the Valley Complex was completed after the Hill Complex and Great Enclsoure were abandoned.
Basically we should not be looking at all the house remains and stone enclosures as if they were built and used at the same time.
Great Zimbabwe lacked the infrastructure to sustain such a large population.
There are also indications that the population density as estimated by earlier researchers by correlating the number of huts to people living within was overstated due to faulty ethnography.
Better information on the size of the pre-colonial population has also helped us to refine the population estimates used for Great Zimbabwe.
So more a village than a city?
A paper published by Zimbabwean archaeologist Shadreck Chirikure and others this year argued the number to be closer to Garlake’s original estimate, namely 2,500 to 4,000.
In essence, the authors of the study combined sophisticated computer-based population models with new findings from archaeological surveys, anthropological studies on modern rural households and additional pre-colonial demographic data to arrive at their conclusions.
While not the definitive answer, it is in all likelihood that this a more reasonable estimate.
What does that imply?
This finding plausibly debunks the idea that overpopulation led to the decline and collapse of Great Zimbabwe.
New archaeological evidence suggests its survival was based on maintaining a good ecological balance between low population and available resources: especially water, land and pastures.
Metals and minerals would have been obtained through tribute, trade and exchange.
In a pre-industrial era, it is difficult to have so many people living in one place for over a hundred years without a huge increase in diseases.
Thus, while the population of Great Zimbabwe was high by local standards, it was low enough for a sustainable economy and to maintain general health of the population (it should be noted that without the discovery of any burials associated with Great Zimbabwe this remains opinion, not fact).
Doesn’t that diminish Great Zimbabwe’s status?
Relax. The scale of drystone building at the site, in the face of a low population makes the site even more impressive – outstanding even.
With so few people there, how long did it actually take to build the walls? Much longer than currently estimated and thus an eve greater testament to the foresight and acumen of the leaders there.
There are implications regarding the comparative wealth of those in the city: with fewer people, wealth could have been even more concentrated than is currently imagined. In addition, it was an urban area compared to the low surrounding rural populations.
The only challenge to its historical dominance as a major urban centre would come from Khami and the Mutapa State, a question to be explored in future columns.
