HomeOld_PostsZim’s forgotten archaeological and zoological scoops

Zim’s forgotten archaeological and zoological scoops

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BETWEEN February 4 and 5, global newsrooms led by The New York Times, featured a breaking news item on a major scientific find in Zimbabwe; researchers in Zimbabwe had found a rare frog that has not been seen in decades.
Local newsrooms, with exception of one paper that belatedly smuggled a paragraph in the paper’s obscure sections, missed the story and its significance.
According to the researchers, the frog, Arthroleptis troglodytes, also known as the cave squeaker because of its preferred habitat, was discovered in 1962, but there were no reported sightings of the elusive amphibian after that.
An international alert for the frog species tagged them as critically endangered and possibly extinct. The frog was discovered in Chirinda forest, Chimanimani, itself a world famous biodiversity habitat.
Caroline Washaya-Moyo, then spokeswoman for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, perhaps also missing the bigger picture, was quoted as saying: “We are expecting an influx of scientists looking for it.
We will do everything in our power to protect and conserve the frog.”
And so died a Zimbabwean story and expected national benefits.
It was not the first time I had experienced the maddening noises of Zimbabwean silence. In November 2014, I had stumbled upon online ‘breaking news’ on Zimbabwean archaeology.
A panel of expert international archaeologists, including two Zimbabweans who had been carrying out research in south western Zimbabwe since 2013 had, in an online publication PLOS, arrived at conclusions that were set to shake global understanding of the Zimbabwe civilisation. This panel of archaeology dons was led by Zimbabwean Shadreck Chirikure of Cape Town University.
The new findings by this panel, backed by extensive analysis and radio carbon dating of Leopard’s Kopje and Zimbabwe material culture at Leopard’s Kopje, Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe and Mapela concluded that it was at Mapela, a hill in south western Zimbabwe, closer to our border with Botswana, that the Zimbabwe culture first manifested!
The story was sustained as global news during the rest of 2014 and beginning of 2015. Curiously Mapela’s Zimbabwean identity was obscured in the global news coverage.
A casual read of the news items left one thinking that Mapela Hill was either in Botswana or in South Africa’s Limpopo Province. The Zimbabwean scholars involved in the work were identified in terms of their South African work stations, not nationality. The Zimbabwean press abetted the confusion by completely ignoring this very important piece of news. I did a piece for The Patriot then, a story that disappeared in pervasive national silence on the matter.
Local cultural heritage specialists did not fare better in the conspiracy to suppress this news. Mapela Hill has to this day remained Zimbabwe’s best kept secret. Could it be we seeking to protect it from influx of potential visitors?
Here is why Mapela is both political and archaeological breaking news; Mapungubwe is to South Africa what Great Zimbabwe is to Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe culture material remains at Mapungubwe were long dated to the 13th Century AD and 14th to 15th Century AD at Great Zimbabwe. Related material at Khami ruins has been dated to the 15th Century to 19th Century AD.
The latter two tying in well with available historical evidence on the Mutapa and Rozvi states. Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe and Khami are prominent World Heritage Sites. The Zimbabwe culture identity, in archaeology, consists of stone walls, dhaka floors, social stratification and sacred leadership.
This has been found in abundance at Mapela Hill and dated to the 11th Century AD, making Mapela nearly two hundred years older as a Zimbabwe site than Mapungubwe.
These findings are massive and will surely bring back global archaeology debates on state formation in sub-Saharan Africa back to Zimbabwe, a century after the first debates were ignited.
This has been a developing story since 1968 when celebrated local archaeologist, Peter Garlake, first reported on some of these Mapela attributes. He concluded this had been a stand-alone Leopard’s Kopje capital. Garlake unfortunately only looked at the Mapela hilltop and missed on the full extent of a site that Chirikure and team have now shown dwarfs Mapungubwe.
Based on Garlake’s findings and cultural precedence, scholars like Huffman reasoned that the Zimbabwe culture originated from Mapungubwe, which at that time was the only Leopard’s Kopje site exhibiting the full Zimbabwe culture attributes.
These generalised and at times convenient conclusions resulted in not much effort being made to research ‘lesser’ sites like Mapela which dominated the Zimbabwe archaeological landscape. Common sense should, however, have pointed that one day a Great Zimbabwe ancestor could emerge from among these Leopard’s Kopje sites.
Enter Chirikure and his team and our Great Zimbabwe knowledge horizons have been extensively broadened; Mapela Hill Zimbabwe culture settlement is bigger and older than that at Mapungubwe!
Mapela is a prominent hill near the confluence of the Shashi/Shashani rivers, and almost on the Zimbabwe/Botswana border.
Mapela is in a remote part of the country and almost inaccessible in true Dzimbahwe, abode of the spirits, fashion. Herein lay the Zimbabwe ancestries in eternal peace, undisturbed by modern civilising agencies that pay little regard to our archaeological heritage. Or so it appeared until I heard news that the site is seriously threatened by developments on the Zimbabwean side.
A new border post has been opened in the area and associated developments have allegedly ripped through parts of the ancient town of Mapela. Three years after the ground breaking discoveries Mapela has not even made it onto the National Monuments list.
Yet this is a potential World Heritage Site of epic political and archaeological significance. As with natural resources Zimbabwe is sleeping on a cultural and historical treasure trove.

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