Papers by Tawanda Mukwende
World heritage review, 2019
Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to outline and reflect on the new research agenda for the Gre... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to outline and reflect on the new research agenda for the Great Zimbabwe World Heritage property. This research agenda was jointly developed by academics and practitioners from Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) and the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ) respectively. This Research-Practice Team was put together for the Heritage Place Lab (HPL), a pilot project of the ICCROM-IUCN World Heritage Leadership programme.Design/methodology/approachA series of steps were undertaken to come up with research priorities and a new research agenda that are presented in this paper. The HPL project involved online workshops, due to the COVID-19 travel restrictions, that were held between September 2021 and April 2022. The HPL methodology involved six assignments that were based on the Enhancing Our Heritage Toolkit 2.0 (EOH) which was being designed by UNESCO and its Advisory Bodies. This toolkit encouraged the team to establish site-specific manage...
Independent Museums and Culture Centres in Colonial and Post-colonial Zimbabwe, 2022
The Butua state was one of the largest pre-colonial state systems, established in southern Africa... more The Butua state was one of the largest pre-colonial state systems, established in southern Africa in the early 15th century. The state was initially centered at Khami but the capital moved to Danamombe in the 17th century. A defining characteristic of the Butua state was its architecture, which is predominantly made up of terraced platforms built using the technology of dry-stone masonry. The state covered a large area that includes modern-day southern and south-western parts of Zimbabwe, north-east Botswana, and northern South Africa. The Butua state thrived on a number of key economic activities that included mining of various minerals, including gold, which was in high demand from Portuguese and Swahili traders on the Indian Ocean coast. Various metals were also processed to provide a range of utilitarian or ornamental objects made of gold, copper, iron, or alloys of more than one metal. Other economic pillars of the Butua state included cattle farming, agriculture, and local exc...
Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa
Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa
Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa
The general conviction in the Iron Age archaeology of southern Zambezia is that drylands such as ... more 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.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal
In southern Africa, there has been a long-standing but unsubstantiated assumption that the site o... more In southern Africa, there has been a long-standing but unsubstantiated assumption that the site of Khami evolved out of Great Zimbabwe's demise around ad 1450. The study of local ceramics from the two sites indicate that the respective ceramic traditions are clearly different across the entire sequence, pointing towards different cultural affiliations in their origins. Furthermore, there are tangible typological differences between and within their related dry-stone architecture. Finally, absolute and relative chronologies of the two sites suggest that Khami flourished as a major centre from the late fourteenth/early fifteenth century, long before Great Zimbabwe's decline. Great Zimbabwe also continued to be occupied into the late seventeenth and perhaps eighteenth centuries, after the decline of Khami. Consequently, the combined significance of these observations contradicts the parent-offspring relationship implied in traditional frameworks. Instead, as chronologically ove...
Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 2016
This study sought to understand the archaeology of the Zimbabwe Culture capital of Khami through ... more This study sought to understand the archaeology of the Zimbabwe Culture capital of Khami through synchronic and diachronic analyses of its material culture. The research employed a number of methodological approaches that included a review of historic documents, surveying and mapping, excavations, museum collection analysis, and artefact studies, in order to collect datasets from various sections of the site, including the walled and the nonwalled areas. The main indication is that there is a great deal of similarity in material culture distribution across the whole site. An analysis of objects by stratigraphic sequence exposes continuity and change in local and imported objects. Dry stone-wall architectural data suggests that the site was constructed over a long period, with construction motivated by a number of expansionary factors. The study confirms that Khami began as a fully developed cultural unit, with no developmental trajectory recorded at Mapungubwe or Great Zimbabwe, where earlier ceramic units influenced later ones. Consequently, this study cautiously suggests that Khami represents a continuity with the Woolandale chiefdoms that settled in the southwestern parts of the country and in the adjacent areas of Botswana. On the basis of the chronological and material culture evidence, Khami is unlikely to have emerged out of Great Zimbabwe. However, more research is needed to confirm these emergent conclusions, and to better understand the chronological and spatial relationships between not just Woolandale and Khami sites but also Khami and the multiple Khami-type sites scattered across southern Zambezia.
African Archaeological Review, 2016
While pioneers of archaeology in any given region have established the foundations of the discipl... more While pioneers of archaeology in any given region have established the foundations of the discipline, their views have not remained unchanged in places such as Europe, North America and Australasia. In these regions, successive generations of researchers changed the direction of their work based not just on new observations but also in light of new methods and theories.
International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2015
Before colonialism, heritage sites such as Khami were considered resting places for ancestors, va... more Before colonialism, heritage sites such as Khami were considered resting places for ancestors, valued more for the spirit of place than their monumentality. In this context, local custodians hardly intervened with the fabric of the site. With the introduction of modern conservation principles, which persist to this day, vegetation control and wall restorations became part of routine conservation measures. This paper discusses dry stone wall restorations carried out at Khami between 2000 and 2015 focusing on the disjuncture between indigenous and local concepts of heritage, concerned with access and preserving the spirit of ancestors, and ‘western’ principles of restoration. It argues that while ignoring the structural disintegration of Khami would have resulted in possible delisting from the World Heritage List, the ‘neglect’ which Khami experienced was in tandem with its local social context; being a resting place for ancestors. While the reconstructions interfered with an acceptable physical context of local beliefs, restorations maintained the integrity of the site as a tourist destination with positive local economic benefits. Although compromises are by their nature unsatisfactory, modern heritage conservation in Africa must adapt and improvise to achieve a mix of local and international practices to reflect changed and changing realities.
Before colonialism, heritage sites such as Khami were considered resting places for ancestors, va... more Before colonialism, heritage sites such as Khami were considered resting places for ancestors, valued more for the spirit of place than their monumentality. In this context, local custodians hardly intervened with the fabric of the site. With the introduction of modern conservation principles, which persist to this day, vegetation control and wall restorations became part of routine conservation measures. This paper discusses dry stone wall restorations carried out at Khami between 2000 and 2015 focusing on the disjuncture between indigenous and local concepts of heritage, concerned with access and preserving the spirit of ancestors, and ‘western’ principles of restoration. It argues that while ignoring the structural disintegration of Khami would have resulted in possible delisting from the World Heritage List, the ‘neglect’ which Khami experienced was in tandem with its local social context; being a resting place for ancestors. While the reconstructions interfered with an acceptab...
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Papers by Tawanda Mukwende