Talk:Great Zimbabwe

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Great Zimbabwe article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

This article is written in South African English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, realise, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Africa Top‑importance

	Africa portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject AfricaTemplate:WikiProject AfricaAfrica
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Architecture Mid‑importance

	Architecture portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Architecture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Architecture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchitectureWikipedia:WikiProject ArchitectureTemplate:WikiProject ArchitectureArchitecture
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Archaeology Top‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Archaeology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Archaeology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchaeologyWikipedia:WikiProject ArchaeologyTemplate:WikiProject ArchaeologyArchaeology
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

World Heritage Sites Top‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject World Heritage Sites, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of World Heritage Sites on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.World Heritage SitesWikipedia:WikiProject World Heritage SitesTemplate:WikiProject World Heritage SitesWorld Heritage Sites
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Zimbabwe Top‑importance

Great Zimbabwe is within the scope of WikiProject Zimbabwe, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.ZimbabweWikipedia:WikiProject ZimbabweTemplate:WikiProject ZimbabweZimbabwe

Top

This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

WikiProject Zimbabwe open tasks:

Tasks clipboard

Zimbabwe-related tasks

You can help!

Zimbabwe

Requests: Ruwa Scout Park, Central African Jamboree, Bulawayo Asian Civil Rights League, Rhodesia Bantu Voters Association, Nyasaland Chiefs Conference, Nyasaland African National Congress, Monarchy of Rhodesia, more...
Stubs: Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Econet Wireless, Khame Ruins, Wildlife of Zimbabwe Category:Zimbabwe stubs
Category sorting:
Verify or Factual Accuracy:
Update:
NPOV :
Citations:
Copyedit, Style or Cleanup:
Expand:
Related Wikiprojects: Wikipedia:WikiProject Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe-related topics notice board - Collaboration Project

view • edit • discuss • history • watch

Cities

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Cities, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of cities, towns and various other settlements on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CitiesWikipedia:WikiProject CitiesTemplate:WikiProject CitiesWikiProject Cities

Anthropology: Oral tradition

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Anthropology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Anthropology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AnthropologyWikipedia:WikiProject AnthropologyTemplate:WikiProject AnthropologyAnthropology
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
	This article is supported by Oral tradition taskforce.

Archives

Archive 1 - 2003 to 2009
Archive 2 - 2010
Archive 3 - 2011
Archive 4 - 2012 to Feb. 2013
Archive 5 - Feb. to May 2013
Archive 6 - May 2013 to 2020

Tip: Anchors are case-sensitive in most browsers.

This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.

[[History of Zimbabwe#Majority rule|independent]] The anchor (#Majority rule) has been deleted by other users before.

Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. | Reporting errors

City or village?

Is the term "city" really justified for something this size? Wouldn't "village" be more accurate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.195.1.165 (talk) 13:06, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

History

Ndebele State 217.15.117.118 (talk) 18:05, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Lemba

Is it necessary to have the paragraph about the Lemba genetic and cultural origins? It is covered in Lemba people, and this level of detail is not pertinent to discussion of the hypothesis of their involvement in Gt Z. Babakathy (talk) 17:20, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The ancestors of the Lemba are postulated as being the originators of Greater Zimbabwe (a discussion that is repressed in Zimbabwe) so I guess it is pertinent. Although I note there is no note of their semitic DNA which would be especially relevant in that semitic peoples were heavily involved in the trade of ores from the region in History. 2001:8003:70F5:2400:4D5D:CCB:F17F:E633 (talk) 02:51, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy not relying on Gayre, but now we have the Lemba claimed sourced only to Bolts and Anderson, both unreferenced. Anderson's main work archived doesn't mention the Lemba at all, saying no black people could be the builders. Babakathy (talk) 09:56, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Babakathy Sorry. I'm not at all sure this is ok, but see Lemba people#Migration into Africa. That article has had a lot of pov editing in the past. Doug Weller talk 10:45, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, as does this one.

What we need in the Lemba section is to be able to summarise research done in the relevant period, as we have on Mauch and Bent and so on.

Bolts I can only find the primary reference, Gayre and his derivatives.

Bolts, W.B., 1777. “Report sent to Mr Andrew Daniel Pollett (Agent for their Imperial Majestics)”, p. 6; Transvaal Argief A497.

Babakathy (talk) 10:52, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As this is a subsection of history of research would it be better to put Bolts in his correct historic epoch, rather than under Lemba? Babakathy (talk) 10:55, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Probably. But we should use nothing to do with Gayre. If we can't find anything better maybe it should be left out. I thought I'd fixed this some time ago, hopefully I didn't make it worse! Doug Weller talk 13:59, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Date of abandonment

User:Kowal2701 The Museum source does say 15th century. "Great Zimbabwe in Historical Archaeology: Reconceptualizing Decline, Abandonment, and Reoccupation of an Ancient Polity, A.D. 1450–1900" says "However, even when both oral and written sources become available after A.D. 1500, Great Zimbabwe remains peripheral to mainstream developments on the Zimbabwe Plateau and the western Indian Ocean zone. Clearly it must have been abandoned then," The Current Anthropology aticle says up to the first half of the 16th century What have I missed about the date? Doug Weller talk 16:17, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Conundrum of Great Zimbabwe says 1100-1700, however I'm happy to put 16th century. Truth is, we don't know. This from 2020 also says c. 1600. This from 2019 says The doubling of existing radiocarbon dates showed that most unwalled settlements were occupied post-AD 1450, with settlement persisting into the 17th century. 15th century is definitely outdated, it used to be thought states in Southern Africa were linear, such that Mapungubwe ended 1300, Zimbabwe began 1300 ended 1450, Mutapa began 1450, but this has effectively been ripped up in the past decade. Kowal2701 (talk) 16:56, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

San people

100,000 years must be wrong. Doug Weller talk 16:19, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's what the Mlambo source says, also this and this support it Kowal2701 (talk) 17:03, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]