[7][8] The settlement lay on the margins of mainstream developments occurring to its south from the 10th century in the Limpopo-Shashe Basin, where states and chiefdoms competed over gold and other goods for the Indian Ocean trade.

This process rapidly advanced during the 13th century, which saw large dry masonry stone walls raised, and by 1250 Great Zimbabwe had become an important trade centre.

[b] It is unclear to what extent climate change played a role, however Great Zimbabwe's location in a favourable rainfall zone makes this unlikely to have been a primary cause.

Great Zimbabwe's dominance over the region depended on its continual extension and projection of influence, as its growing population needed more farming land and traders more gold.

[17] From the early 15th century, international trade began to decline amid a global economic downturn, reducing demand for gold, which adversely affected Great Zimbabwe.

By the late 15th century, the consequences of this decision began to manifest, as, according to oral tradition, Nyatsimba Mutota, a member of Great Zimbabwe's royal family, led part of the population north in search for salt to found the Mutapa Empire.

[9] The social institution had a Mambo as its sacred leader, aided by a designated brother or sister,[16] along with an increasingly rigid three-tiered class structure.

[16] Royalty initially lived at the Eastern and Western enclosures, with archaeological research uncovering ritual spears, gongs, and soapstone bird effigies.

[16] Similar to Venda tradition (who diverged from the Karanga in the 17th century), the Great Enclosure could have been used for circumcision rites and served as a pre-marital school for girls and boys, called Domba.

[9][15] Exotic goods found in the kingdom's region acquired local meanings in rituals, aesthetics, and status, such as Persian earthenware bowls and Chinese celadon.

[22] The Kingdom of Zimbabwe had a mosaic political economy which embedded production and circulation to address needs at individual, household, village, district, capital, and state levels within a multidimensional environment dependent on local qualities.

[13] Great Zimbabwe's wealth was derived from cattle rearing, agriculture, and the domination of trade routes from the goldfields of the Zimbabwean Plateau to the Swahili coast.

The colonial government pressured archaeologists to deny that the structure was built by indigenous Africans, and the refutation of various fantastical and dehumanising theories, along with other activities of the antiquarians, dominated the historiography of Great Zimbabwe throughout the 20th century.

They hold the government responsible for the "silence" and "closure" of Great Zimbabwe due to their refusal to "acknowledge the ownership and control of the site by the ancestors and Mwari".