Nok Culture
The Nok culture is an early Iron Age population whose material remains are named after the Ham village of Nok in Kaduna State of Nigeria, where their famous terracotta sculptures were first discovered in 1928. The Nok Culture appeared in northern Nigeria around 1500 BC and vanished under unknown circumstances around 500 AD.
Iron use, in smelting and forging for tools, appears in Nok culture by at least 550 BC and possibly earlier. Data from historical linguistics suggest that iron smelting was independently discovered in the region prior to 1000 BC.
Archaeological finds include life-sized terracotta, stone tools, rock paintings and iron implements, including spear points, bracelets, and small knives.
The Nok also had one of the most complex judicial systems of the time which pre-dates the western judicial system. The Nok people created classes of courts used for adjudicating cases from minor civil cases, such as family disputes and false allegations, to criminal cases such as stealing, murder and adultery.
The Nok of Nigeria
...Soil analysis from the spots where the artifacts were found dated them to around 500 B.C. This seemed impossible since the type of complex societies that would have produced such works were not supposed to have existed in West Africa that early. But when Fagg subjected plant matter found embedded in the terracotta to the then-new technique of radiocarbon dating, the dates ranged from 440 B.C. to A.D. 200. He later dated the scarecrow head—now called the Jemaa Head after the village where it was found—to about 500 B.C. using a process called thermoluminescence which gauges the time since baked clay was fired. Through a combination of luck, legwork, and new dating techniques, Fagg and his collaborators had apparently discovered a hitherto unknown civilization, which he named Nok.
Nok's 500BC terracotta heads
The Nok civilisation was discovered in 1943 due to tin mining that was happening in the area and earned its name due to the Nok civilisation that used to inhabit the area from around 500 BC. Mysteriously the people of the village vanished in about 200 AD. These people were known for their extremely advanced social system and were the earliest producers of life-sized Terracotta in the Sub-Sahara. Hugely historical, archaeologists have found human skeletons, stone tools and rock paintings around this area, not to mention the main act. The inhabitants of what is now called Nok Village, were known to make some of the oldest and culturally intriguing sculptures found in Africa.
New Studies on the Nok Culture of Central Nigeria
A brief report is given on preliminary results of astudy dedicated to the Nok Culture of Central Ni-geria.
A Chronology of the Central Nigerian Nok Culture – 1500 BC to the Beginning of the Common Era.
The chronological analyses have shown that the Nok Culture spans a period of about 1500 years. It is no longer defined by its characteristic terracotta figurines only, but includes an early phase without such figurines, connected through stylistic and material similarities in pottery and continuity in site occupation. The lack of earlier evidence of settlements suggests a migration of people with pearl millet as staple food into the region around the middle of the second millennium BC. The first terracotta figurines from secure excavation context appear in the early first millennium BC, in connection with a sharp increase in sites. Somewhat later evidence of iron working in form of furnaces is found. The main phase ends in the 4th century BC; few sites — within and outside of the key study area — are attributed the last centuries BC, obviously representing the final phase of the Nok Culture. It is not known what happened to the people of the Nok Culture that had so densely occupied the region. But settlement continues from the early centuries AD onwards, just in a different form: with new pottery decorations and forms, without figurines, and with new staple food
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