History and Culture of Zimbabwe. One of the cradles of the human race is in the northern African Rift Valley, which includes modern-day Zambia. This area traces human settlement back almost three million years. Zimbabwe Information and Travel Guide. Vacation package Book. In Zambia, sites in the north and south record back to sixty thousand years ago. Tribal migrations in only the past three hundred years have determined the makeup of present-day Zambia. Between 1500 and 1800 the Lunda and Luba people traveled from the Congo and became a powerful group. The Ngoni, originally from South Africa, escaped from the Boers and Zulus and settled in Eastern Zambia around 1850–1870. Another powerful tribe, the Lozi, dominated western Zambia and also originated from the Congo in the late seventeenth century. By the beginning of the twentieth century, these tribal migrations had transformed the area into a complex society tied together by conflicts and trade.