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Paper short abstract:

This paper uses insights from the notion of risk to explore how the local and global dynamics of supply and demand of iron in particular and other minerals such as gold and copper would have posed a challenge to Great Zimbabwe's sustainability as an economy and society.

Paper long abstract:

Great Zimbabwe, arguably southern Africa's earliest and largest Iron Age city-state, has perhaps the earliest and longest history of mining the Zimbabwe plateau's rich mineral deposits, particularly iron, gold and copper. During its urban phase spanning the 12th and 16th centuries AD, Great Zimbabwe underwent phenomenal growth, generating monumentality and international trade links arguably from mineral wealth, which also anchored the local agro-pastoralist economy. Research has illuminated the existence of considerable mining and preindustrial technologies in Great Zimbabwe with complex and innovative designs and processes of extracting quality metals, given the settlement's significance. Yet, this conjoined early history of mining and the rise of urbanism, social complexity and statehood in a matrix of dynamic international trade systems, remains largely unexplored for understanding sustainable economies and societies in the longue durée. This paper uses insights from the notion of risk to explore how the local and global dynamics of supply and demand of iron in particular and other minerals such as gold and copper would have posed a challenge to Great Zimbabwe' sustainability as an economy and society. This way of thinking has the potential to yield alternative and historically nuanced insights into the roots, legacies and impacts of Africa's globalised mineral economies and urbanism.