ORIGIN OF ZIMl'.ABWE-CULTURE. 329 



Zimbabwe Temple and that of the earUest of the Alatebeleland 

 ruins and of the older decadent ruins throughout the country 



This Dr. Alaciver himself to some extent allows for by his 

 (lutings, for between his earliest datings for the erection of the 

 Zimbabwe Temple given in his " Mediajval Rhodesia " and hi> 

 earliest datings for the erection of the Matebeleland ruins he 

 claims an interval of at least 500 years. He thus goes a long 

 way to confirm my estimate of the relative ages of the Temple 

 and the ^latebeleland ruins. 



l)Ut in the Encyciopccdia Brifaniiica he places the date of 

 the Temple back to possibly the eleventh century. This is a 

 l)resent of 200 years. For the sake of mere argument we will 

 accept this later dating, but most certainly not as matter of fact. 

 Now, what is the logical sequence. According to Dr. Maciver 

 we have the Temple, its perfected style of building, its wealth in 

 undoubted pre-historic relics, and its ceremonial, cii fin, its display 

 of a superior culture. Seven hundred years later, on Dr 

 MaciverV own showing, we have Khami, etc., with its obviously 

 decadent walls, its absence of i)re-historic relics and no ceremonial. 

 He thus destroys his own theory of evolution, for in the seven 

 hundred years is demonstrated nothing save devolution and 

 decadence in culture and a descent to Kafirisation. 



The -Matebeleland ruins thus constitute archaeological half- 

 way houses in the scale of decadence between the more perfected 

 style of the earliest Zimbabwe type of structure and the Kafirisa- 

 tion shown in the rude rampart walls of pjled-up unhewn stones 

 into which the originally imported Zimbabwe-culture after long 

 centuries of display ultimately became dissolved. 



The Matebeleland ruins can never assist us to determine the 

 ori<jiii of the Zimbabwe-culture as exemplified at the Temple, but 

 their walls and their relics very materially assist us to fill up the 

 later gaps in the history of the Zimbabwe-culture in this country. 

 But in seeking the origin of that culture, especially in building in 

 dressed stone, we must still go back to the Zimbabwe Temple and 

 its massive conical tower. 



2nd. The second reason which brought about my conversion 

 froiu the hypothesis of a natural evolution of the Bantu or 

 negroid as explanatory of the Rhodesian phenomena was : that 

 the relics found in the admittedly later ruins proved a gradual 

 decadence in culture as time elapsed. This gradual petering-out 

 of the more perfected culture in art, workmanship, and material 

 of relic parallels exactly, and also contemporaneously, the gradual 

 petering-out of the originally more perfected culture iri building, 

 plan, and construction to that of Kafirisation ; and what is more 

 important is. that just as exactly and as contemporaneously there 

 is demonstrated a parallel petering-out of the culture of rock- 

 mining for gold from the admittedly oldest, largest, deepest, and 

 most skilfully worked gold mines until the shallow workings on 

 outcrops of copper and iron ore are reached. The pre-historic 

 rock-mining for gold, which constitutes the largest area of ancient 



