Fifteenth to seventeenth century ruins of the Ziwa people (upland culture) have been found throughout Nyanga. The ruins include homesteads, centred on pit structures thought to have been used as cattle-pens and larger hill-top settlements, referred to as Forts. The pit structures were once referred to as slave pits, but that interpretation has generally been not supported by archaeologists and is now discredited. There are three sites which can be readily accessed by tourists: Chawomera Fort is located above the Nyangombe River, on a gravel road north of the park headquarters.
Associated with the ruins are extensive agricultural terracing and irrigation furrows. Iron extraction was practised, mainly to support the complex agricultural technology.