Reconsidering Cattle and Power at Great Zimbabwe

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Great Zimbabwe (GZ) is key for understanding precolonial African urban systems. Cattle bones are some of the most common materials recovered from GZ and have played a central role in interpreting the ways power was enacted at the site over time. Scholars use dental wear and eruption data from cattle molars and long bone epiphyseal fusion patterns to argue that elites on the site’s hilltop regularly ate prime cuts from pre-breeding age cattle, while commoners away from the hill ate less beef and of lower quality. Although these foundational studies raise interesting social questions about animals and people at GZ, most rely on data from one poorly described context excavated in the 1970s. To build a more coherent picture of meat-eating and its relationship to inequality at the site, I apply updated age-at-death and body part representation methods to cattle remains from recently excavated midden contexts across the site. Analyses are ongoing, but suggest that the slaughter and consumption of entire young cows was common throughout the site’s use in both ‘elite’ and ‘commoner’ areas. This implies that links between food and power were more complex than originally thought and possibly involved feasting activities, perhaps on a seasonal basis.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37827.0