Early Nigeria: a limited timeline

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

32KYA
Sangoan industrial complex in river valleys south of the Jos Plateau and north
of the forrest including Jebba (near Old Oyo).

12KYA
Osteo-remains of Iwo Eleru (near Akure in what would be the heartland of
Ife kingdom) are associated with the late stone age phase I facies A industry
of hunters who used microliths but were without pottery or ground stone axes.

3600 - 1500 BCE contemporary with pre-dynastic, early dynastic, Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom Egypt
Guinea neolithic industry of the late stone age phase II facies A type is at
Iwo Eleru and Mejiro Cave (up in Old Oyo). Pottery and ground stone axes
appear alongside the microliths. Farming begins to allow for population
density. There are orchards (oil palms) under which clearings were made
for gardening of roots (yams) and nuts (kola).

1000 - 1BCE
Southbound Saharan pastoralist enter the general region losing their easily
worked flint and adopting the harder quartz available locally. Their tool kit
thus loses its aesthetics though retaining its effectiveness.

350 BCE
Ife comes into existance as 13 hamlets of farming villages.

950 CE
Completely urbanized, Ife is producing elaborate glass bead work (akori and
segi beads), specialized naturalistic sculpture (terracottas by women; stone,
metal, and wood by men; castings by joint effort), and highly decorated domestic
pottery. The city now starts to pave its streets and courtyards with terracotta bricks.

Ile-Ife is the place where the consciousness of ethnic identity for the Anago began.
It was the central place of creation for them and from there radiated religious
and political authority to the many cities who claim origins in Ile-Ife whether
or not their inhabitants were Anagos.

It was internal trade that fostered the late neolithic villages and towns and
early iron age cities. The subsequent emergence of Yoruba kingdoms and
their Oyo empire depended essentially on a highly successful exploitation
of their environment due to indigenous genius.

[anansi]

3600 - 1500 BCE contemporary with pre-dynastic, early dynastic, Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom Egypt
Guinea neolithic industry of the late stone age phase II facies A type is at
Iwo Eleru and Mejiro Cave (up in Old Oyo). Pottery and ground stone axes
appear alongside the microliths. Farming begins to allow for population
density. There are orchards (oil palms) under which clearings were made
for gardening of roots (yams) and nuts (kola).

Did the New tool kit indicate new comers or advancements made on the spot.

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

Gajiganna: Early Settlers at the western shore of Lake Chad


after the works of Peter Breunig, Katherina Neumann, Wim van Neer, Karl Peter Wendt, Heinrich Thiemeyer and Detlef Gronenborn

Near the present town of Gajiganna, NE of the city of Maiduguri, nine sites were excavated. All of them are small settlement mounds rising not more than 2 m above the surrounding surface, with between one and three occupational phases, that are distinguished by different sedimentation and pottery types. Detailed examination of this pottery is still under way, but preliminary analysis of tempering techniques resulted in a tentative ceramic sequence with four succeeding phases, ranging, according to the 14C dates obtained so far, between 2200 cal BC and 400 cal BC. The prehistoric settlements were situated close to an extensive body of water, believed to have been a lagoon formed by backwaters of Lake Chad. The approximate extent of this lagoon can be reconstructed from the vast clay plains (firki), which are still today partly flooded each year during the rainy season. Considering the sites’ proximity to water, it is not surprising that subsistence seems to have been based to a large extent on aquatic resources. Nevertheless, a significant proportion of the faunal remains derived from domesticated animals: in Gajiganna some of the earliest remains of cattle in West Africa, as well as sheep and goats, were recovered. Hunting also played a role in the economy.

Charred plant remains indicate a somewhat denser vegetation cover than today. Species reflect typical savannah components with traces of human influence. Unfortunately, sampling for charred fruits and seeds in the Gajiganna area has proved unsuccessful so far and therefore no remains of cereals have been discovered in the Gajiganna area although abundant fragments of grinding stones suggest the processing of plant material. These plants, however, might well have been wild grasses or wild rice which occur widely within the Chad Basin and are still collected near the sites today. Such wild grasses have also been identified among the botanical remains from the Kursakata mound. The middle layers of Kursakata produced charred Pennisetum grains of a domesticated variety which date anytime between the 8th and 2nd centuries cal BC. As the use of domesticated varieties have not been demonstrated beyond doubt for Later Stone Age sites, it remains presently unclear whether before the use of iron in the mid first millenium BC, the inhabitants of the SW Chad Basin harvested domesticates, or solely made use of the abundant wild species in the area.

Generally the Gajiganna sites are interpreted as the remains of several small dispersed hamlets that existed along the shores of a lagoon of Lake Chad between 2200 B.C. and 400 B.C. Their economy seems to have been based on hunting, fishing, and gathering.

Gronenborn, Version 1.0, April 1997
www.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de/~sfb268/c7/gg.htm

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

Not exactly sure what you mean by "new tool kit."
Advancements would've been made in the general area.
Newcomers would've been from elsewhere in the general area.
Saharans were not thought to enter the general area until after 1500 BCE.

Mejiro Cave (Old Oyo), Rop (Bauchi plateau), and Iwo Eleru
(Western State) all have an archaeological level of microliths
but without either ground stone axes or pottery. Rop and Iwo
Eleru both have a level above that with microliths, ground stone
axes and pottery.

Iwo Eleru dates the start of the lower level to 11.2 kya and the changeover at 4.9 kya.

At Afikpo in southern Nigeria the industry produced ground stone
axes and pottery but no microliths. This was between 5k - 2kya.

Aug 21, 2010 0:55:35 GMT -5 anansi said:

3600 - 1500 BCE contemporary with pre-dynastic, early dynastic, Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom Egypt
Guinea neolithic industry of the late stone age phase II facies A type is at
Iwo Eleru and Mejiro Cave (up in Old Oyo). Pottery and ground stone axes
appear alongside the microliths. Farming begins to allow for population
density. There are orchards (oil palms) under which clearings were made
for gardening of roots (yams) and nuts (kola).

Did the New tool kit indicate new comers or advancements made on the spot.

[anansi]

By tool kit I was referring to the new stone axe
Be patient with me for asking this, but were the people living in the area before 1500 B.C Ba-Tawi ?

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

The Iwo Eleru skeleton is full sized
though cranially archaic. But is it
generically representative of LSA
West Africans?

Is there evidence of the little people
having all the aspects of the West
African LSA industries and economies?

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

Iwo Eleru


CATEGORY: site

DEFINITION: A rock shelter in the forest zone of southwestern Nigeria which has yielded the longest dated sequence of microlithic artifacts found in West Africa. Occupation was established by 12,000 years ago and the chipped stone industry continued for as long as 8000 years with only minor changes. From the lowest horizon a human burial, described as showing Negroid physical features, was recovered and it is the oldest Nigerian skeleton yet uncovered. In about the mid-4th millennium ground stone artifacts and pottery came into use. There is some evidence for the beginning of agriculture around that time.

Chris Stringer et al has authored an up to date report
New research on the Iwo Eleru cranium from Nigeria.
The end result is that the Iwo Eleru skeleton is outside
continuity with current West African populations.