Colonial rulers denied Africans built Great Zimbabwe — archaeology proved them wrong

Great Zimbabwe's massive dry-stone walls, built without mortar between the 11th and 15th centuries, were the capital of a wealthy trading kingdom of Shona ancestors that reached the Swahili coast. Rhodesia's colonial government spent decades promoting theories crediting Phoenicians, Arabs, or other outsiders, and even censored archaeologists who said otherwise. Radiocarbon dating and artifact analysis have long since confirmed it was built entirely by local Bantu-speaking Africans.

— Innocent Pikirayi, The Zimbabwe Culture: Origins and Decline of Southern Zambezian States — AltaMira Press, 2001
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