Rethinking Ingombe Ilede and its hinterland

Abstract

The late fifteenth- to early seventeenth-century dates reported by Susan McIntosh and Brian Fagan (above) for the richest burials at Ingombe Ilede challenge well-known narratives concerning trade and politics in greater Zambezia. For example, as the authors indicate, Ingombe Ilede now seems more an outcome of the destabilised politics of Great Zimbabwe than a cause of its demise. The role that the inhabitants of Ingombe Ilede played in the shifting competitions and alliances that characterised political and economic life in sixteenth-century Zambezia must now be addressed.