![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The central Nigerian Nok Culture is known for its elaborate terracotta figurines and iron metallurgy of the first millennium BC. Since 2005, Goethe University Frankfurt has carried out comprehensive research on this otherwise hardly known cultural complex, focusing on chronology, the structure and function of sites and their reoccupation, environment and subsistence and the function of the enigmatic terracotta figurines. Initial excavations demonstrated that features are scarce and sometimes nearly invisible and that they usually display a mixture of cultural materials of different ages. With an area of 2617 m2, the site of Pangwari represents the largest excavation of the Frankfurt Nok project, geared to tackle the project’s key questions. Application of detailed documentation and analysis methods reveals recurring site use between 1500 and 500 BC, a shift in site function and a spatial and temporal relationship between grave features, pits and a terracotta deposition. Canarium schweinfurthii and pearl millet were important constituents of Nok subsistence. Small-scale agriculture probably had only limited impact on the local vegetation, which was a mosaic of dry forests and woodlands. The present synopsis conveys the image of a Nok site, which started as a settlement in the second millennium BC and turned to ritual use around 800 BC.
RÉSUMÉ
La Culture de Nok (centre du Nigeria) est connue pour ses remarquables sculptures en terre cuite et pour l’apparition de la métallurgie du fer datant du premier millénaire av. J.-C. Depuis 2005, l’Université de Goethe à Francfort mène des recherches intensives sur cette culture qui demeure peu connue, spécifiquement sur la chronologie, la structure et la fonction des sites et leur réoccupation, l’environnement et la subsistance et la fonction des énigmatiques terres cuites. Les premières fouilles ont démontré que les structures sont rares, parfois quasi invisibles, et qu’elles se caractérisent souvent par des mélanges de mobilier de différentes périodes. Couvrant 2617 m2, le site de Pangwari représente la plus importante fouille du project Nok de Francfort, destinée à examiner les questions au centre de ce projet. Des méthodes de documentation et d’analyse détaillées ont révélé un usage répété du site entre 1500 et 500 av. J.-C., un changement dans la fonction du site et une relation spatiale et temporelle entre les sépultures, les fosses et un dépôt de terres cuites. Canarium schweinfurthii et le mil constituaient une partie importante de la subsistance de Nok. L’agriculture à petite échelle a probablement eu un impact limité sur la vegetation locale, constituée d’une mosaïque de forêts sèches et de forêts claires. Le présent synopsis restitue l’image d’un site Nok, d’abord un habitat au second millénaire av. J.-C. puis un lieu rituel après 800 av. J.-C.
Acknowledgements
The principal authors of this paper — Gabriele Franke, Alexa Höhn and Annika Schmidt — respectively undertook the chronological and ceramic (GF), three-dimensional finds distribution and XRF (AS) and archaeobotanical (AH) analyses reported here. Sylvain Ozainne is responsible for the statistical analysis and the Bayes and Bchron models. Peter Breunig is the leader of the archaeological project; he supervised the excavation and supplied all necessary data. His ideas and comments, as well as those of Katharina Neumann, the leader of the archaeobotanical project, were much appreciated in structuring this paper. We should like to thank Tanja M. Männel and André Burmann for comments on the style and spatial distribution of the terracotta figurines, Louis Champion for information on the carpological remains identified during his ongoing analyses, Julie Dunne for the preliminary results of chemical residue analysis, Eyub F. Eyub for the geophysical survey and analysis, Rolf Stahl for the recording of the stone balls and Gabriele Försterling for the graphic work on the figures. SEM pictures (Hitachi S-4500) were taken with Niklas Döring at the EM-Service-Laboratory, Biological Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt. We especially thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for the financial funding of this project since 2009 (BR 1459/7 and NE 408/5) and the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Nigeria for giving us the possibility of conducting research on the Nok Culture, especially its retired Director General Yusuf Abdallah Usman and its retired Director of Research Musa Hambolu. Without the continuous support of both organisations, the results described above would not have been achieved. The Embassy of Germany in Nigeria always supported our research and helped in critical situations. We want to thank particularly Regine Heß and Colin Davidson who opened their house in difficult times. Without the support of Julius Berger PLC our logistics would have been much more complicated: thank you to their dedicated staff for always being of help when needed. Finally, our fieldwork would not have been possible without the assistance of the staff provided by the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, especially Phateema Ben Ameh, Victor Sako and Aribido Adeniyi, and of the Universities of Zaria and Jos, namely Muhammad K. Aliyu, Aliyu Adamu Isa, Joseph Jemkur and Joseph Mangut, and last, but not least, the local workers from Janjala.
Notes on contributors
Gabriele Franke is research fellow in African archaeology at the Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. She has worked in the Nok Culture project since 2010, concentrating on pottery, chronology and site analysis (PhD on Nok pottery 2015), and has conducted fieldwork in Nigeria. Her research focuses on cultural changes, the beginnings of complexity and iron production.
Annika Schmidt is research fellow in African archaeology at the Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. She has been involved in the Nok Culture project since 2010 and has conducted several excavations, completing her PhD thesis on pXRF multi-element analysis of Nok Culture features in 2019. Her main focus is on the spatial and feature analysis of Nok sites.
Alexa Höhn is research fellow for African archaeobotany at the Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. She has worked on archaeobotanical remains from Burkina Faso, Bénin, Cameroon and Nigeria. Her research explores human-environment interactions, focusing on tracing the formation, propagation and development of cultural landscapes and linking these to land-use practices, connected social processes, such as the adoption of certain livelihoods and innovations, and their environmental settings.
Sylvain Ozainne is archaeologist and GIS specialist in Valais (Switzerland) and external collaborator at the Laboratoire de l’Archéologie et Peuplement de l'Afrique (APA) at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He has worked in Dogon Country (Mali) as a member of the programme “Human population and palaeoenvironment in Africa”, with an emphasis on the cultural, spatial and chronological settings of the development of food production in Sub-Saharan West Africa. His main research interests focus on the relationships between societies and their environments.
Peter Breunig is head of the African Archaeology section at the Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. He has directed research in Bénin, Burkina Faso and Nigeria, with his major research interest lying in the transition from hunter-gatherer groups to sedentary, food-producing communities and the origins of complex societies in Africa, though he has also conducted fieldwork on rock art sites in Namibia. Since 2005, the Nok Culture in central Nigeria has been his major research focus.
Katharina Neumann is head of the African Archaeobotany section at the Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. Her major research interests are the origin and development of African plant food production and late Quaternary African vegetation history as it relates to climate and human impact. Her methodological focus lies on phytoliths and archaeological charcoal
Notes
1 All radiocarbon dates have been calibrated using OxCal 4.3 and IntCal 13 (Bronk Ramsey Citation2009, Citation2017; Reimer et al. Citation2013) and are given with their 95.4% probability.