AARHUS, DENMARK—According to a statement released by Aarhus University, a new study at Great Zimbabwe, the eleventh-century capital of the Shona kingdom located in what is now southeastern Zimbabwe, indicates that the large depressions in the landscape surrounding the city’s surviving stone structures may have been used to store and manage the city’s water supply. It had been previously thought that the depressions, which are known as dhaka pits, were made when clay was dug to build the city. However, remote sensing surveys and excavations conducted by an international team of researchers led by Innocent Pikirayi of the University of Pretoria suggest that the pits were positioned to collect surface water in areas where water runs when it rains, and collect and store seeping groundwater. The stored water would have allowed the people of Great Zimbabwe to manage their livestock and crops during the two dry seasons of the year, the researchers concluded. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Anthropocene. To read about the Zimbabwe site of Mapela, go to "World Roundup: Zimbabwe."
