500 to 1599

Broken Hill and Ingombe Ilede

In 1921 miners at Broken Hill, now Kabwe, find the skull of an early human who lived roughly 300,000 years ago. For thousands of years hunter gatherers roam the plateau, and in the first millennium AD Bantu speaking farmers bring iron and crops. Around the fifteenth century, rich traders are buried at Ingombe Ilede, on the Zambezi, with gold, copper and cloth.