The Archaeology of Nok Culture in Nigeria (2nd/1st Millennium BCE)

Abstract

The elaborate terracotta figurines of central Nigerian Nok culture date back to the early 1st millennium bce and represent the earliest large-size sculptural tradition in sub-Saharan Africa. Archaeological finds from the mid-20th century suggested that they appeared together with iron production and pointed to an early complex society preceding later Nigerian societies, such as Ile-Ife and Benin, which feature evidence for social differentiation and political organization. Fieldwork in the last fifteen years has yielded signs of specialization in terracotta and iron production, but no evidence for social or political complexity. Nok people were small-scale farmers living in dispersed homesteads from the mid-2nd millennium bce, when they arrived in the region from the north, and sharing the same lifeways, the same ceramic style, and, from 900 bce onward, the widely distributed use of highly standardized terracotta figurines. The earliest evidence for iron production is found at least one hundred years after the appearance of the first terracotta figurines, so that no link between the figurines and the presence of iron can be established. Excavations in 2016 have proven the spatial and temporal connection between terracotta figurine depositions and stone-pot arrangements interpreted as graves, indicating an ancestral belief system further revealed by evidence of feasting and mortuary rituals recurring over time. Thus, while no social or political complexity can be postulated for Nok culture based on the current evidence, the terracotta figurines and their use in mortuary rituals point to a complex ritual system spread over a large area in central Nigeria. Nok culture with its characteristic figurines and pottery disappears in the last centuries bce and is succeeded by people with new crops and different pottery in the early 1st millennium ce.