Are drylands marginal? The case of Mananzve, Shashi region, southwestern Zimbabwe

Bibliographic Data

ID6041767
AuthorsRobert T Nyamushosho (0000-0003-3449-9316, Materials Laboratory, Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7700, South Africa, corresponding author), Shadreck Chirikure (0000-0002-2183-4253, Materials Laboratory, Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7700, South Africa), Foreman Bandama (0000-0002-4664-3410, Materials Laboratory, Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7700, South Africa), Munyaradzi Manyanga (University of Zimbabwe), Tawanda Mukwende (0000-0002-0048-5365, Materials Laboratory, Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7700, South Africa)
Year2018
Volume53
Issue4
Pages439-476
Publication date2018-10-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAzania Archaeological Research in Africa (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0067-270X • E-ISSN: 1945-5534
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0067270x.2018.1542798
OpenAlexW2904007252
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited49

The general conviction in the Iron Age archaeology of southern Zambezia is that drylands such as the Shashi region are marginal landscapes that did not host any significant food producing communities in the past. Resultantly, for those communities that occupied these landscapes, their settlement histories have been always portrayed as short-lived, since their existence is mostly understood as by chance and not choice. However, new data recovered from Mananzve and other drylands sites we surveyed and excavated in the Shashi region of south-western Zimbabwe demonstrates that Iron Age communities had a long-term settlement history on the landscape and that, through various strategies, they maintained food security in the face of environmental and climatic adversities. At a broader scale, these findings show that these areas perceived today as drylands are resource rich and that Iron Age communities which occupied these landscapes had the capacity to adapt and utilise these resources to their advantage. This challenges the designation of drylands of southern Zambezia such as the Shashi region as marginal, since that term undermines their resource potential and the adaptive capacity of the communities occupying them consistently through time

Adaptive capacity · Adaptive strategies · Agriculture · Archaeology · Climate change · Conviction · Economics · Food security · Geography · Political science · Resource (disambiguation) · Settlement (finance) · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · Ecology · Law

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