ABSTRACT
One of the most remarkable and certainly one of the best known archaeological sites in Africa is Great Zimbabwe, a site which has even given its name to the country in which it is situated. It lies near the south-eastern edge of the Zimbabwe Plateau, an area of high land much of which is over 1000 metres above sea level. To the north and south of this plateau are two of the continent’s major rivers, the Zambezi and the Limpopo, to the east is the wide coastal plain of the Indian Ocean and to the west the Kalahari Desert. The elevation of the plateau makes it a relatively attractive place for human settlement and between about 1000 and 500 years ago it was the location of important developments, of which Great Zimbabwe was the most outstanding consequence. As the first large city of the southern African interior and controlling much of its surrounding area, it also participated in the Indian Ocean trade handled by the mercantile settlements of the East African coast (Chapter 25). For perhaps two centuries it was the most powerful centre in its region, a power that was physically expressed in the monumental stone structures which have made it famous. To understand how this came about, it is essential to examine the rise and fall of Great Zimbabwe in its full context: geographical, chronological, social, economic and political. In the past, Great Zimbabwe was sometimes presented as a great mystery but the only mystery is why it should ever have been thought to be one.
