[citation needed] Archaeological evidence has shed some lights on these events, but a great deal of work still remains to be done.

[2] Documentary proof of this is found in Dutch records, which refer to an interview in 1730 with an African by the name of Mahumane, who had visited the kingdom of Thovhele some five years previously.

[citation needed] It is highly unlikely that he could remain chief throughout this period of a minimum of 50 years that Dzata was the capital.

Oral history indicates very strongly that it was after the disappearance of Thohoyandou that Dzata was abandoned, and the Venda nation fragmented once more into independent chiefdoms.

[citation needed] It seems very likely that Thohoyandou expanded the Venda empire to cover areas as far south as the Olifants River near Phalaborwa.