By Dr Michelina Andreucci

ROME, in ancient times, grew from pastoral settlements on the Palastine and surrounding seven hills to a grandeur befitting the capital of an empire that dominated the entire Mediterranean region.
Beginning in the 2nd Century, Roman civilisation had begun to decline; including urbanisation, sea-borne commerce and population, estimated to have fallen from 65 million to 50 million — a decline of over 20 percent, that resulted in weakened agricultural yields.
The decline in agricultural and economic activities eventually reduced the empire’s taxable income and consequently its ability to maintain a professional army to defend it from external threats.
From the mid-5th Century onwards, since the city was no longer supplied with grain from Africa, many inhabitants were forced to flee.
Rome, once the largest, richest and most politically important city for over 1 000 years, began to experience population declines, exacerbated by waves of epidemics that decimated whole rural populations throughout the Western world.
The volume of trade, following the decline of the Roman Empire in the 8th Century, reached its lowest level since the Bronze Age.
The ‘Pax Romana’ (Roman peace), experienced during the empire, that provided security and the conditions for manufacture and trade was now lost; including a unified cultural and educational milieu of far-ranging connections.
In the 7th Century, the Islamic caliphates conquered swathes of formerly Roman territory.
The Charlemagne’s Carolingian Empire (circa 800) in Western Europe affected later European social structure and history.
Europe returned to systematic agriculture in the form of the feudal system and introduced innovations such as three-field crop rotation and the heavy plough.
(The Romans had used light, wheel-less ploughs with flat iron shares that often proved unsuited to northern Europe’s heavy soils). Under the feudal system, a manor would have several fields, each sub-divided into one-acre/4 000 m2 strips.
Each family working at the manor was given 30 strips of land to farm.
Because the system required major re-arrangements of property and social order, it was not until the 11th Century that it came into common use.
During the Mediaeval Period, the Arab world played a crucial role in the exchange of crops and technology between Asia, Europe and the African continent.
The Islamic Golden Age, from the 8th Century, marked the transformation in agricultural practices in the Islamic world and the world afar.
It was driven by a number of factors, including the dispersal of many crops and plants along the Muslim trade routes, the spread of advanced farming techniques and an agricultural economic system which promoted increased yields and efficiency.
Muslim traders, beyond the Islamic world, covered much of the Old World and introduced major crops to Europe — alongside techniques for their cultivation and cuisine.
Sugarcane, rice and cotton were among some major crops, along with citrus and other fruit and nut trees, vegetables such as aubergine, spinach and chard, and the use of spices such as cumin, coriander, nutmeg and cinnamon.
Besides spreading numerous crops, they introduced the concept of summer irrigation to Europe and developed the beginnings of the plantation system of sugarcane growing through the use of slaves for intensive cultivation.
They operated and introduced irrigation, (based on Roman technology), water mills (which were first invented by the Romans), water wheels, dams and reservoirs.
These were used and improved upon throughout the Middle Ages (circa early 5th-14th Century) to grind grains into flour, cut wood and process flax and wool.
Intensive irrigation, crop rotation and agricultural manuals were also widely adopted during the agricultural revolution of Islamic Golden Age.
The Islamic conquest (and subsequent Arab blockade), of North Africa was completed early in 1 000 AD. That established the cultural, religious and ethnic division between Africa north and Africa south of the Sahara (that still remained undiscovered), and established the early trade routes; effecting significantly pre-colonial Africa’s socio-economy, trade and production systems.
At the same time, the Bantu Migration of people together with their livestock, moving from west to southern Africa in search of new land was completed in 1 000 AD, and iron tools had begun to replace the early flint tools.
In Zimbabwe, these early migrants settled in an area called Mapungubwe (circa 1075-1220) — translating in Shona to ‘the rock of the eagles’, no doubt due to its high elevation.
The immediate predecessor to Mapungubwe settlement was a particularly large Iron Age site with vast iron deposits.
Named the Leopard’s Kopje and known as K2 Civilisation by archaeologists who theorised that by 1075, the population of K2, possibly derived from the ancestral Khoi San people, had outgrown the area and relocated to Mapungubwe Hill.
This early Shona Kingdom, located in the fertile confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo rivers, was eminently suitable for mixed agriculture.
It was the first phase of development that later culminated in the foundation of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, with gold trading links along the East African coast.
The area was also prime elephant country, providing access to valuable ivory that was traded through the Indian Ocean trade routes that were sailed by Arab and Portuguese traders soon after.
Arab navigators, and subsequently other seafarers, used such tools as the astrolabe and quadrant instruments for celestial navigation.
Vast quantities of bone fragments from slaughtered domestic animals and burnt seeds of domesticated plants such as sorghum and bulrush millet indicate that the people of Mapungubwe were successful farmers.
The architecture and spatial arrangement at Mapungubwe is said to provide the earliest evidence for sacred leadership in southern Africa.
The society at Mapungubwe is believed to be the first class-based social system in southern Africa; its leaders were separated from, and higher in rank, than other inhabitants.
Archaeologists believe the kingdom was possibly divided into a three-tiered hierarchy with the common people inhabiting lower-lying sites; community leaders occupied smaller hilltops and the capital, Mapungubwe Hill, was the area of supreme authority.
Royal wives lived on their own in an area away from the king. Important men maintained prestigious homes on the outskirts of the capital; the leaders within the kingdom were buried in hill caves.
Special sites were created for initiation ceremonies, household activities and other social functions while domesticated cattle were penned close to the peoples’ houses, indicative of their value.
The spatial division that first occurred at Mapungubwe would later be replicated at maDzimbahwe and beyond.
Life in Mapungubwe was centred on family and farming.
Agriculture eventually led to population growth and specialisation in mining, iron work, jewellery fabrication and pottery.
Innumerable gold objects belonging to the elite were uncovered in burial sites on the royal Mapungubwe Hill.
The area is now part of Mapungubwe National Park, that includes the Tuli Block in Botswana and the Tuli Safari area in Zimbabwe, that form part of the Limpopo-Shashe Transfrontier Conservation Area, officially known as Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conservation Area.
In Zimbabwe, remains of iron smelting furnaces can be found in many parts of the country; proof of the great skills possessed by our early ancestors.
Dr Michelina Rudo Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian researcher, industrial design consultant lecturer and specialist hospitality interior decorator. She is a published author in her field. For comments e-mail: linamanucci@gmail.com