Nok | |
|---|---|
Village, Archeological site | |
  Nok | |
| Coordinates: 9°30′0″N8°1′0″E / 9.50000°N 8.01667°E | |
| Country | Nigeria |
| State | Kaduna |
Nok is a village in Jaba Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria. The village is an archeological site.
Contents
Nok | |
|---|---|
Village, Archeological site | |
| Nok | |
| Coordinates: 9°30′0″N8°1′0″E / 9.50000°N 8.01667°E | |
| Country | Nigeria |
| State | Kaduna |
Nok is a village in Jaba Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria. The village is an archeological site.
The discovery of terracotta figurines at this location caused its name to be used for the Nok culture, of which these figurines are typical, which flourished in Nigeria in the period 1500 BC - 500 AD. [1] [2] The artifacts were discovered in 1943 during mining operations. [3] The archaeologist Bernard Fagg investigated the site, and with the help of locals discovered many other artifacts. [4] Iron smelting furnaces were also found at Nok. [1]
Occupation dates far before the first iron smelting. A sample of carbonized wood found in the "main paddock" at Nok in 1951 was dated to around 3660 BC though there are questions about the reliability of this conclusion. [5]
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting from approximately 3300 BCE to 1200 BCE. Characterized by the use of bronze, the use of writing in some areas, and other features of early urban civilization, the Bronze Age is the second principal period of the three-age system proposed in 1836 by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen for classifying and studying ancient societies and history. It is also considered the second phase of three, in the Metal Ages.
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Copper and Bronze Ages. It has also been considered as the final Age of the three-age division starting with prehistory and progressing to protohistory. In this usage, it is preceded by the Stone Age and Bronze Age. These concepts originated in describing Iron Age Europe and the Ancient Near East, but they now include other parts of the Old World.
Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta, is a term used in some contexts for earthenware. It is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic, fired at relatively low temperatures.
African art describes the modern and historical paintings, sculptures, installations, and other visual culture from native or indigenous Africans and the African continent. The definition may also include the art of the African diasporas, such as: African-American, Caribbean or art in South American societies inspired by African traditions. Despite this diversity, there are unifying artistic themes present when considering the totality of the visual culture from the continent of Africa.
Ifẹ̀ is an ancient Yoruba city in south-western Nigeria, recent in-depth archeologically estimates suggest Ife's founding to be between the 10th century BC and 6th century BC and is widely agreed upon by historians to be the oldest amongst the classical and post-classical Yoruba city-states. The city is located in present-day Osun State. Ifẹ̀ is about 218 kilometers northeast of Lagos with a population of over 500,000 people, which is the highest in Osun State according to population census of 2006.
A bloomery is a type of metallurgical furnace once used widely for smelting iron from its oxides. The bloomery was the earliest form of smelter capable of smelting iron. Bloomeries produce a porous mass of iron and slag called a bloom. The mix of slag and iron in the bloom, termed sponge iron, is usually consolidated and further forged into wrought iron. Blast furnaces, which produce pig iron, have largely superseded bloomeries.
The Nok culture is a population whose material remains are named after the Ham village of Nok in southern Kaduna State of Nigeria, where their terracotta sculptures were first discovered in 1928. The Nok people and the Gajiganna people may have migrated from the Central Sahara, along with pearl millet and pottery, diverged prior to arriving in the northern region of Nigeria, and thus, settled in their respective locations in the region of Gajiganna and Nok. Nok people may have also migrated from the West African Sahel to the region of Nok. Nok culture may have emerged in 1500 BCE and continued to persist until 1 BCE.
Djenné-Djenno is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Niger River Valley in the country of Mali. Literally translated to "ancient Djenné", it is the original site of both Djenné and Mali and is considered to be among the oldest urbanized centers and the best-known archaeology site in West Africa. This archaeological site is located about three kilometres from the modern town, and is believed to have been involved in long distance trade and possibly the domestication of African rice. The site is believed to exceed 33 hectares in area; however this is yet to be confirmed with extensive survey work. With the help of archaeological excavations mainly by Roderick and Susan McIntosh, the site is known to have been occupied from 250 BC to 900 AD. The city is believed to have been abandoned and moved where the current city is located due to the spread of Islam and the building of the Great Mosque of Djenné. Previously, it was assumed that advanced trade networks and complex societies did not exist in the region until the arrival of traders from Southwest Asia. However, sites such as Djenné-Djenno disprove this, as these traditions in West Africa flourished long before. More recently, it has been concluded that the egalitarian civilization of Djenne-Djenno was likely established by the Mande progenitors of the Bozo people, which spanned from 3rd century BCE to 13th century CE.
Ferrous metallurgy is the metallurgy of iron and its alloys. The earliest surviving prehistoric iron artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt, were made from meteoritic iron-nickel. It is not known when or where the smelting of iron from ores began, but by the end of the 2nd millennium BC iron was being produced from iron ores in the region from Greece to India, and sub-Saharan Africa. The use of wrought iron was known by the 1st millennium BC, and its spread defined the Iron Age. During the medieval period, smiths in Europe found a way of producing wrought iron from cast iron, in this context known as pig iron, using finery forges. All these processes required charcoal as fuel.
The history of Nigeria before 1500 has been divided into its prehistory, Iron Age, and flourishing of its kingdoms and states. Acheulean tool-using archaic humans may have dwelled throughout West Africa since at least between 780,000 BP and 126,000 BP. Middle Stone Age West Africans likely dwelled continuously in West Africa between MIS 4 and MIS 2, and Iwo Eleru people persisted at Iwo Eleru as late as 13,000 BP. West African hunter-gatherers occupied western Central Africa earlier than 32,000 BP, dwelled throughout coastal West Africa by 12,000 BP, and migrated northward between 12,000 BP and 8000 BP as far as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania. The Dufuna canoe, a dugout canoe found in northern Nigeria has been dated to around 6556-6388 BCE and 6164-6005 BCE, making it the oldest known boat in Africa and the second oldest worldwide.
Bernard Evelyn Buller Fagg MBE, was a British archaeologist and museum curator who undertook extensive work in Nigeria before and after the Second World War.
Iron metallurgy in Africa developed within Africa; though initially assumed to be of external origin, this assumption has been rendered untenable; archaeological evidence has increasingly supported an indigenous origin. Some recent studies date the inception of iron metallurgy in Africa between 3000 BCE and 2500 BCE. Archaeometallurgical scientific knowledge and technological development originated in numerous centers of Africa; the centers of origin were located in West Africa, Central Africa, and East Africa; consequently, as these origin centers are located within inner Africa, these archaeometallurgical developments are thus native African technologies.
The Bura culture refers to a set of archeological sites in the lower Niger River valley of Niger and Burkina Faso. More specifically, the Iron Age civilization exemplified by the Bura culture was centered in the southwest portion of modern-day Niger and in the southeast part of contemporary Burkina Faso.
Katsina-Ala is a Local Government Area (LGA) of Benue State, Nigeria. Its headquarters are in the town of Katsina-Ala where the A344 highway starts. It is also the location of an important archeological site where artifacts of the Nok culture have been found.
The Nigerian National Museum is a national museum of Nigeria, located in the city of Lagos. The museum has a notable collection of Nigerian art, including pieces of statuary, carvings also archaeological and ethnographic exhibits. Of note is a terracotta human head known as the Jemaa Head, part of the Nok culture. The piece is named after Jema'a, the village where it was discovered. The museum is located at Onikan, Lagos Island, Lagos State. The museum is administered by the National Commission for Museums and Monuments.
Taruga is an archeological site in Nigeria famous for the artifacts of the Nok culture that have been discovered there, some dating to 600 BC, and for evidence of very early iron working. The site is 60 km southeast of Abuja, in the Middle Belt.
Samun Dukiya is an archeological site in Nigeria in the Nok valley where artifacts from the Nok culture have been found, dating to between 300 BC and 100 BC.
The prehistory of the Iranian plateau, and the wider region now known as Greater Iran, as part of the prehistory of the Near East is conventionally divided into the Paleolithic, Epipaleolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age periods, spanning the time from the first settlement by archaic humans about a million years ago until the beginning of the historical record during the Neo-Assyrian Empire, in the 8th century BC.
The pre-history of Northern Nigeria spans the period covering from the early history of the planet to the time of written historical records. There has been very little investigation into the History of Northern Nigeria before the rise of human civilisation.
The archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu is the study of an archaeological site located in a town of the same name: Igbo-Ukwu, an Igbo town in Anambra State in southeastern Nigeria. As a result of these findings, three excavation areas at Igbo-Ukwu were opened in 1959 and 1964 by Charles Thurstan Shaw: Igbo Richard, Igbo Isaiah, and Igbo Jonah. Excavations revealed more than 700 high quality artifacts of copper, bronze and iron, as well as about 165,000 glass, carnelian and stone beads, pottery, textiles and ivory beads, cups, and horns. The bronzes include numerous ritual vessels, pendants, crowns, breastplates, staff ornaments, swords, and fly-whisk handles.
