The book sheds new light on socio-cultural developments of northern Nigeria in the last 2000 years relying on primary data from excavations, archives and oral sources.

West Africa during the Atlantic Slave Trade surveys archaeological data from Senegal to the Cameroon. It focuses on the past 500 years, a period that witnessed dramatic transformations in African political and social systems, as well as the consequences of European expansion, the advent of the Atlantic slave trade, and the expansion of Islamic polities in the West African Sahel. The geographical and topical scope of this volume draws together archaeological syntheses of various parts of West Africa and is an important resource for West Africanists and all researchers interested in the indigenous response to European expansion, as well as for those examining African continuities in the Americas.

Hausa society in West Africa has attracted researchers’ attention for decades, and has featured in the historical record for at least 500 years. Yet, no clear picture is available of the historical trajectories that underpin Hausa ethnogenesis. This book addresses this gap, deploying interdisciplinary approaches to revisit questions to which single disciplines have given partial answers, often due to the paucity of written sources for early periods of Hausa history. Contributors draw from the disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, economic history, and archaeology to enquire into how a ‘Hausa’ identity took shape and what have been its changing material and cultural manifestations. The result is a compelling overview of one of the most iconic groups of modern West Africa.

Table of contents

The 12 essays in this book are amongst the papers read at the 19th Annual Conference of the Archaeological Association of Nigeria held recently at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. The different essays focus on different areas in Nigerian Archaeology.Given the dearth of materials on Nigerian Archaeology, it is our hope that this collection of essays will fill various gaps in our understanding of Nigeria's past. Chapter 1 and 2 deal with environmental issues in Nigerian Archaeology while Chapters3 and4 deal with regional syntheses of archaeological work in the South South and South East regions of Nigeria. Chapter 5 discusses the Middle Stone Age site of Saminaka in Kaduna State, Nigeria. Chapter 6 explores the archaeology of the Ufe area while Chapter 7 is an archaeological report on the historic site of Onumoba in Kogi State, Nigeria.Chapter 8 reports on new Carbon 14 dates from Tsauni in the Zaria area while Chapter 9 is a report on Gora Bafai, Chapter 10 is on education and training, chapter 11 is on the stunted growth of Nigerian Archaeology while the last Chapter examines identity issues on the Dass Plateau.We recommend the book for students of Nigerian Archaeology.