Early Nigerian culture

The Nok culture

Evidence of human occupation in Nigeria dates back thousands of years.

The oldest fossil remains found by archaeologists in the southwestern

area of Iwo Eleru, near Akure, have been dated to about 9000 bc. There

are isolated collections of ancient tools and artifacts of different

periods of the Stone Age, but the oldest recognizable evidence of an

organized society belongs to the Nok culture (c. 500 bc–c. ad 200).

Pottery head found at Nok, Nigeria. In the Jos Museum, Nigeria. Height

21 cm. [Credits : Frank Willett]Named for the village of Nok, site of

some of the finds, the ancient culture produced fine terra-cotta

figurines, which were accidentally discovered by tin miners on the Jos

Plateau in the 1930s. Initially Neolithic (New Stone Age), the Nok

culture made the transition to the Iron Age. Its people raised crops

and cattle and seem to have paid particular attention to personal

adornment, especially of the hair. Distinctive features of Nok art

include naturalism, stylized treatment of the mouth and eyes, relative

proportions of the human head, body, and feet, distortions of the human

facial features, and treatment of animal forms. The spread of Nok-type

figures in a wide area south of the Jos Plateau, covering southern

Kaduna state southeastward to Katsina Ala, south of the Benue River,

suggests a well-established culture that left traces still identifiable

in the lives of the peoples of the area today. Many of the distinctive

features of Nok art can also be traced in later developments of

Nigerian art produced in such places as Igbo Ukwu, Ife, Esie, and Benin

City.