Great Zimbabwe was the first major city in southern Africa, home to an estimated 18,000 people at its peak. Yet no one really knows why it now lies in ruins.
The demise of the once-thriving Medieval metropolis is sometimes boiled down to drought and a drying climate, but archaeologists have now found evidence of careful water conservation amid the wreckage.
A team of researchers from Denmark, South Africa, England, and Zimbabwe argue that a series of large, circular depressions known as 'dhaka' pits, found around the city, were not used for digging up clay, as experts once thought, but for capturing water.
At the base of several hillsides, for instance, lie numerous dhaka pits, strategically placed to capture rain and groundwater. Other pits surrounding the city straddle streams.
