The order of Toutswemogala, Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe

ABEL ABEDNICO MABUSE
Correspondent | Friday June 14, 2013 00:00

The focus on the three prehistoric settlements of Toutswemogala, Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe is intended to show how important our past is, even to our future.

Although I am yet to visit the world acclaimed Great Zimbabwe Ruins, I am compelled by my personal knowledge of the other two prehistoric settlements to provide a discussion of this kind. The first time I ascended Toutswemogala Hill, I experienced a surge of spiritual accomplishment; some sort of a connection with a benevolent culture that flourished in the area around present day Maope some 1200 years ago. The vast panoramic landscape that unfolded before my eyes from the top of Toutswemogala Hill compared only to what I experienced the first time at the Copper Bracelet of the Kalahari- Tsodilo Hills. What mattered most to me at Toutswemogala was not the countless and spiritedly executed rock art of Tsodilo, but the affluence of the hill itself. Countless pottery fragments and exceptional cattle kraals with vitrified cow dung, fire hardened remains of clay huts, glass beads- all within thick buffalo grass growing on the flattened top of this hill told a story of a rich and important Bantu culture that existed here in the distant past. Those who have visited before me have glorified Toutswemogala as a chiefdom, a mini-state or an organised settlement whose people lived in splendor, coupled by some degree of extravagance.

On my first visit to Toutswemogala Hill, I was accompanied by colleagues from the Department of Arts and Culture. The purpose of the trip was to help map out the core area of the site in anticipation of the then proposed Toutswemogala Cultural village. I vividly remember making a simple remark about the significance of the site, which mightn't have mattered to the people I was with at that time. Memories of Toutswemogala Hill filled my mind almost to a point of nostalgia as I ascended Mapungubwe Hill.

This time around, I was with fellow archaeologists from Botswana National Museum; Lebonetse Mathe, Matlhodi Segokgo and our driver Topoyame Maitewa. We were on a benchmarking mission in South Africa tasked with the responsibility of learning ways how Botswana could improve its development, interpretation and presentation of cultural and natural heritage sites that are now being opened up for tourism purposes. On this rather special visit to Mapungubwe Hill, we were accompanied by a group of South Africans from Mpumalanga who were also on a similar mission.

Our learned guide, Cedric, gave an excellent presentation of Mapungubwe; tracing its origins, why it is recognised universally as the cradle of civilisation in Southern Africa and many other remarkable things about the site. In my mind, I could not stop myself from thinking about our own little known Toutswemogala Hill. At the height of the presentation on Mapungubwe, I murmured; 'if Great Zimbabwe is the zenith of sacred leadership and political organisation in Southern African prehistory and Mapungubwe is dubbed the genesis of Bantu civilisation, then we can equally acclaim that Toutswemogala is the epitome of development of class stratification in Southern Africa during prehistoric times'.

The central tenet of my argument is based on the fact that no prehistoric cultural centre provides better evidence of evolution of organised socio-political behaviour among Bantu speaking people in Southern Africa than these three sites. Toutswemogala is a flat topped hill forming a crude L-shaped pattern found 50 kilometres north of Palapye at Maope. The hill is visible as a flat topped sandstone outcrop in a Mophane bushveld some 12 kilometers west of the A1 highway. Detailed archaeological research conducted here shows that the Bantu speaking people first occupied the general area around Toutswemogala around AD 700.These Bantu people are archaeologically named Zhizo, after a similar site first excavated in Zimbabwe. In Botswana, Zhizo people lived in the area stretching between the Shashe and Serorome rivers, stretching westwards as far as the Makgadikgadi pans and the edges of the Kalahari Desert. One of the early Zhizo sites found in Botswana known as Taukome is located near Mabeleapodi village and dates to about AD 690. Taukome shows that Zhizo people were rich in cattle, traded in ivory with the Indian Ocean coast for glass beads and other ornamentals.

Some archaeologists suggest that sometime around AD 800, some of the powerful chiefs living among the Zhizo people began to ascend and reside on hilltops.  This settlement lay out, known as the Toutswe culture, saw rulers and the elite living on hilltops while commoners lived in the plains below, herding cattle for the rich rulers and their relatives. Archaelogical work in eastern Botswana further demonstrated that this settlement organisation established itself in most parts of eastern and central Botswana.

Size and political significance of these sites have been established through such work which made categorisation of Toutswe sites possible through measurement of their middens and the size of the hilltop on which they are located. Toutswemogala, Sung near Shoshong and probably Bosutswe to the west of Serowe are some of the largest of the Toutswe sites. At Toutswemogala Hill alone, three large cattle kraals with vitrified cow dung shows the important role that cattle played in the economy of Toutswe people.

At some time around AD 1200, Toutswemogala chiefdoms began to disappear. It is still not very clear what happened at the time, but historians and archaeologists argue that three causes could explain the demise. First, natural resources around Toutswe were diminished by large herds of cattle and the over 3,000 people living in the area. The second point suggests that harsh climatic conditions associated with severe droughts meant that the people could no longer stay there. Thirdly, the rich people began to lose their power and status as cattle herds dwindled. These three reasons provided a catastrophe that broke socio political organisation of Toutswemogala chiefdom and brought it to a gradual demise.

As Toutswemogala chiefdom collapsed, political organisation at Sung and Bosutswe also crumbled. It is suggested that the Toutswemogala people moved into the Shashe Limpopo region where another major political centre known as Mapungubwe was being developed. By AD 1150, Mapungubwe began gradual control of trade with the east coast where beads and cloth were coming from. The rise of Mapungubwe and breaking of the power of the rich Toutswemogala people by these new merchants relegated Toutswemogala to oblivion and ushered in a new order in Southern Africa- the kingdom of Mapungubwe.