Indonesian influence in Africa

Great Zimbabwe have a curious similarity with Indonesians temples. Nobody says it was build by Indonesians, but why couldn't they have seen a model? In any case, we are talking here about Indionesians, a people that lived in Madagascar and that traded with West South Africans, not people from the Mediterranean like Phoenicians, Hebrews or Romans! The glass stones found in Mapungubwe and elsewhere, shows we aren't talking of fantasy now, but a serious hypotesis.

Show evidences, please, of the African origin of Zimbabwe architecture. I believe you are trying to discard a valid hyphotesis without seeing the evidence. Traders were just across the ocean, in Madagascar. Not in Eurasia.

At least there are many archaeological studies which discuss such things. When I come to the university library I shall see if I can find some of them. Otherwise I can ask around among Africanists in Uppsala who has participated in excavations in Zimbabwe.

The things I read hitherto and also by speaking to Africanists are that they claim that Zimbabwe is a large scale representation of earlier, smaller local structures.

I shall try to find out more about that. But it seems that there are studies among others by the Commission on the History of Mathematics in Africa (AMUCHMA), on numeration and geometric figures in the Great Zimbabwe. 

What I know is that one have found goods from many different parts of the Indian Ocean along the East Coast, including Mozambique. Among other things found in Mozambique is a lot of chinese ware and Swahili coast ware.

It´s rather complicated to discern what is direct influence and what is the result of trade. And what time do we talk about? Was it in the haydays of Great Zimbabwe or was it earlier, or maybe later?

Lemba is not the only people who claims ancestry from Great Zimbabwe. And most researchers don´t connect Lemba in particular with Great Zimbabwe.

One must also remember that Arabs and others also have traded with the the East coast of Africa for millenia.  And Jews in Africa are not totally unique, there are the so called Black Jews in Ethiopia too (nowadays many of them live in Israel).

Then we also have the aspect of time. When did the Lemba come to this particular place? When did their ancestor mix up with Jews? What is their connection with Great Zimbabwe?

And how reliable are these kind of DNA studies? Some reserchers in USA for example claim to have found Jewish DNA in Native Americans too:

http://www.mormontimes.com/studies_doctrine/?id=3123

Also here is the so called cohen-associated genetic signature involved. This genes seems to pop up both here and there in the world.

 It´s also interesting to notice that everytime local Africans build something in stone then there always come people and speculate and theoretise about which foreign people can have influenced them to do so. It is as if the idea to build in stone could not come from Africans themselves.

One can see some of this speculations also concerning Engaruka in the Great Rift Valley in Tanzania.

I just used the mormone DNA studies as a little warning to be cautious about genetical claims. I don´t believe in mormone science either.

I think that I will read the book by Dick (funny name) -Read. It is easier to evaluate his arguments, methods of research and ideás then.