Planning a Dig

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Tower in the Great Enclosure, Great Zimbabwe 
By Andrew Moore from Johannesburg, South Africa - Conical Tower - Great Enclosure III, CC BY-SA 2.0

Planning a Dig 

While watching a documentary about an archaeological dig, I noticed how the team decided on first steps in their investigation into the history and development of an ancient huge African city. Instead of looking at the obvious features such as the central enclosure and outer walls, they started on a steep hillside where there seems to be a dump! Why? Because that is where they would find the remains of everyday life of the majority of the people. 

We naturally notice the rich, the famous, the powerful--those in the headlines. But as we investigate our families, and the families of our ancestors, where do we find them? Only rarely in the headlines. Instead, we find them in letters, diaries, recipes, snapshots, social columns, legal and other government records, obituaries. And many choose to follow the paternal line and ignore the women. I get it; men are more easily found in records since they are usually the "breadwinners" and are the heads of households. I find that digging into the lives of women brings rich detail into the story of the family. After all, it takes two to make a baby and usually to raise them, too. 

During the dig at Great Zimbabwe, they soon found a broken pot, which was expected. Then they found a very thick pot shard embedded with shiny bits of metal. An electron microscope scan revealed both gold and lead which led researchers to hypothesize that the pot had been a crucible used in refining gold. They knew that gold ore in the area was often found with lead. Eventually other evidence came to light including grains of sorghum, a high-protein grain which grows well even in times of drought, and could have helped support a large population. The history started to be revealed. 

Again, this resonated with how we work as we build up a picture of our family from little bits of information put together. Once their lives are in a timeline and their moves plotted on a map, the story comes into focus. 

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The PBS Secrets of the Dead episode "Africa's Golden City" (Season 23, Episode 5) reveals how new archaeological findings rewrite the history of Great Zimbabwe, proving it was an expansive, globally connected medieval trade empire built by the ancestors of the Shona.

stream the full episode on the PBS Secrets of the Dead Video Portal


Valorie Zimmerman

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Send your stories to m.strickland@skcgs.org





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