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RECENT research has revealed direct evidence of recovery of gold in the archaeology of Nyanga District. In particular laboratory tests and structural analysis counter-archaeologists’ conjecture that hundreds of stone-lined “pit structures” housed dwarf-sized cattle to provide manure for enriching poor soils on steep scarps for terrace farming.
The research, led by Ann Kritzinger, is gaining national importance. Executive director of National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, Dr Godfrey Mahachi, believes the new research findings will enhance the department’s bid to inscribe the Nyanga cultural landscape, represented by Ziwa National Monument, as a World Heritage Site.
The agricultural theory, which was put forward by Professor Robert Soper from the University of Zimbabwe in 2002 after carrying out some academic research in the district, is countered by assays identifying the processing of ore in the so-called pit structures extracted from alluvial deposits on artificially terraced hill slopes.
According to Kritzinger, the tanks are hydraulically engineered in a manner suggesting gravity concentration of a heavy metal.
The tanks are in fact eminently suited to an ore-classification method to reduce bulk before the gravel could then have been removed and panned leaving the usual concentrate gold.
Being roughly circular, the platform walls are robust enough to withstand the hydraulic pressure of water preferably entering the tank from the bottom to lift the content and start the sorting process.
Resuming this research after retiring from the business world in 2002, Kritzinger, who has a three-year experience in the mining industry in Matabeleland, said it was determination to find the truth on the Nyanga pit structures which has led her this far.
“Professor Soper’s thesis based on recovery of bones on Mt Muozi of cattle unlikely to have been one-metre at shoulder height leads to Prof Soper to generalise that the pits accommodated family cattle which were of dwarf size to fit through the tunnel.
“The problems of horns and extra height at the neck and the need for cattle to raise their heads when descending a slope were not considered in the academic exercise,” she said.
Kritzinger added that it was an observable fact that the sloping tunnels were launders accessing water from hilltop run-off or via stone-lined furrows tapping distant springs or streams.
The dwarf-sized cattle hypothesis is currently disputed by National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe chief archaeologist, Kundishora Chipunza who pointed out that “in the Nyanga high-rainfall area, the cattle would be flooded in those dip pits and pit-penning would contra-good animal husbandry practice.”
Kritzinger’s research area expanded from an initial 20km radius to 65km radius from south of London Stores to Nyatsundzuru.
Mining archaeologists will be able to contribute to the ongoing study, but critical disciplines will be mining engineering, metallurgy, geology and geomorphology.
Online Reporter