Anthropology of gold

Archaeology of gold: Zimbabwe

Blaha, Stephen (online). Reconstructing Prehistoric Civilizations in a New Theory of Civilizations. Retrieved on October 23 from http:
//cogprints.org/2929/1/CivArticle1.pdf

Excerpts:

[1] One Sub-Saharan civilization that does have some solid data on its history available is the Great Zimbabwe civilization4 which lasted
approximately from 500 AD to 1600 AD. While there are no known oral or written historical records of this civilization there are impressive
ruins of a large city (now known as Great Zimbabwe) between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers east of the Kalahari desert that show the
magnitude of this civilization. Shona speaking people started moving into the valley containing this city about 500 AD. The country was
capable of supporting a sizable population through livestock and farming. However the main reason for the development of the city and
civilization of Great Zimbabwe appears to be gold. The city, unlike most cities, was not located on one of the rivers in the area. Instead it
appears, in one view, that it may have been located on top of a rich gold deposit. The gold furnished the money needed to build the city and
to import goods from other parts of Africa and also from India to some extent. (On the other hand, some archaeologists believe that the
economy and power of Great Zimbabwe may not have been founded on gold mining. Great Zimbabwe lies on the routes from gold
producing regions and Indian Ocean ports such as Sofala, Mozambique. African gold and ivory was traded for beads, cloth, and other
goods. For example, Celedon pottery from the early Ming Dynasty was one of the most common imports found at Great Zimbabwe. From
1000 AD onwards Zimbabweans had access to Indian, Chinese, and Persian imports.)

[2] The purpose of the city with its massive walls of up to 32 feet in height and sometimes reaching seventeen feet in width may have been
to protect gold, and to act as a religious center for the worship of Mwari, their god, who they viewed as the creator and sustainer of life.
The most important of the Great Zimbabwe ruins is the “Elliptical Building” – a building with a circumference of roughly 800 feet and a
diameter of up to 293 feet. Together with surrounding ruins it covers an area of roughly 1800 acres. Part of the purpose of the building may
have been to act as a smelter and repository of the gold extracted from the mine beneath. It appears that up to 20,000 people may have
lived in huts outside the Elliptical building.
Major growth in trade led the Zimbabweans, the Mwenemutapa, to centralize their government. Originally they had ruler-priests. As they
rose to empire the Mwenemutapa transitioned to a military kingly government that became the greatest empire south of the Sahara.

See Gold and silver in prehistory and today at examiner.com