ZIMBABWE

	CLIMATE
	Temperatures vary with height above sea level. On winter nights the mountains and the high veld can experience frost. Most rain falls from November to March. Rainfall is lowest in the semidesert southeast, where, in some years, rains fail to arrive, causing serious droughts.

From Early Settlements to Great Zimbabwe

People have lived in Zimbabwe (zim-BAH-bwae) for at least twenty-five thousand years. Probably related to the ancestors of the San (SAHN) peoples of Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa (see BOTSWANA, NAMIBIA, and SOUTH AFRICA), the earliest inhabitants were hunters and gatherers using stone tools and weapons. The first ironworking farmers arrived in the area around 100 C.E. They came from the north, probably speaking early forms of Bantu (BAN-too) languages. Because they grew their own food and kept cattle, sheep, and goats, they were able to form long-term settlements. The farmers traded and intermarried with the hunters.

By about 900 a number of changes had developed. Society began to be divided into wealthy cattle owners and commoners. Gold and copper mining were developed, especially in the western part of Zimbabwe. Long-distance trade became increasingly important, especially in gold, copper, and ivory, in the Limpopo (lim-POE-poe) Valley. Between about 1000 and 1200, this trade was dominated by a powerful state with its capital at Mapungubwe (mah-poon-GOOB-wae), a hilltop settlement in the southwest.

From about 1200 a new kingdom arose on the eastern edge of the Zimbabwe plateau. Gradually it took over the gold trade, and Mapungubwe went into decline. The capital of this new kingdom is known as Great Zimbabwe, from the Shona words dzimba dzamabwe (zihm-bah-zah-MAHB-wae), meaning "stone buildings." Here, the ancestors of the modern Shona (SHOE-nah) people began building stone walls around their king’s and royal family’s palaces and houses. They built from local granite and constructed their walls using a dry stone-walling technique, using no mortar to hold the stones together. The largest of the stone enclosures, built between 1300 and 1400, still stands today, some 33 feet (10 meters) high, topped with beautifully shaped stone patterns. By this time Great Zimbabwe was a powerful and wealthy kingdom, controlling the trade of most of present-day Zimbabwe. Eleven thousand people lived at the capital, which had become an important center for manufacturing gold ornaments and jewelry as well as weaving cotton cloth.