¹ The first European explorers to reach Bornu, Denham, Clapperton and Oudney, did so in 1823, via the Tripoli-Lake Chad route. They named the lake Lake Waterloo but the local name is the one by which it has become known. (Denham in Howard, C. (ed.), West African explorers (Oxford, 1951) 217.)Google Scholar

² Griaule, M. and Lebeuf, J.-P., ‘Fouilles dans la région du Tchad, I-III’, Journal de la Société des Africanistes, xviii, i (1948)Google Scholar; xx, i (1950); xxi, i (1951); Lebeuf, J.-P. and Detourbet, A. Masson, La civilisation du Tchad (Paris, 1950)Google Scholar; Lebeuf, J.-P., Archéologie tchadienne (Paris, 1962)Google Scholar; Lebeuf, J.-P., Carte archéologique des abords du lac Tchad (Paris, 1969)Google Scholar; Balout, L. and Lebeuf, J.-P., ‘Ceramique de la région tchadienne’, I and II, Fiches typologiques africaines (Paris, 1969).Google Scholar

³ Shaw, Thurstan, ‘Archaeology in Nigeria’, Antiquity, xliii (1969), 193.Google Scholar

⁴ Bivar, A. D. H. and Shinnie, P. L., ‘Old Kanuri capitals’ J. Afr. Hist. iii, i (1962), 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ Migeod, F. W. H., ‘The ancient So people of Bornu’, J. Roy. Afr. Soc., xxiii (1923), 19–29.Google Scholar

⁶ Unpublished report for the Nigerian Federal Department of Antiquities.

⁷ Directed by Professor H. F. C. Smith, Department of History, Ahmadu Bello University, this scheme was jointly financed by Ahmadu Bello University and by the University of Ibadan, in the latter case from funds provided by the Rockefeller Foundation through the Institute of African Studies of the University of Ibadan.

⁸ ‘Firki’ is a local word used to describe what is technically montmorillonitic clay. When wet it is black and very greasy; when dry it is grey, extremely hard, and subject to regular deep cracking. It is sometimes (incorrectly) called ‘black cotton soil’.

⁹ The term ‘tell’ is derived from an Arabic word meaning a hillock (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford, 1944). It has become accepted as a specific archaeological term to designate a site where a mound has grown up composed of the remains of successive settlements. The formation of ‘tells’ has been frequently described. See for example Lloyd, S., Mounds of the Near East (Edinburgh, 1963), Chapter 1.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Alhaji Abba Mohammed Habib, Waziri of Dikwa, first drew the writer's attention to this site. Both he and the Shehu of Dikwa aided the research project in many ways.

¹¹ Publications by the present writer concerning the Lake Chad region of Nigeria include the following: Calvocoressi, D. (ed.), COWA surveys and bibliographies (1965) (Area 11, 3), 8–9Google Scholar; ‘Summary of research in Benin City and in Bornu’, West African Archaeological Newsletter, 5 (1966), 22–5; ‘Progress report’, Northern History Research Scheme—First interim report, 11–21 (Zaria, 1966); ‘Progress report on archaeological work in Bornu 1964–1966 with particular reference to the excavations at Daima mound’, Northern History Research Scheme—Second interim report, 17–31 (Zaria, 1967); ‘Radiocarbon dates for Daima, N.E. Nigeria’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, 3 (1967) 741–2; ‘Radiocarbon dates for Daima, N.E. Nigeria’. West African Archaeological Newsletter, 6 (1967), 23–4; ‘“Classic” excavation in North-East Nigeria’, Illustrated London News, 14 October 1967, 42–4; ‘Radiocarbon dates for Benin City and further dates for Daima, N.E. Nigeria’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, 4 (1968), 313–320; ‘Settlement mounds of the firki — the reconstruction of a lost society’, Ibadan, 26 (1969), 48–62; ‘The coming of iron: Nok and Daima’, in Shaw, Thurstan (ed.), Lectures on Nigerian prehistory and archaeology, 30–6 (Ibadan, 1969)Google Scholar; Calvocoressi, D. (ed.), COWA surveys and bibliographies (1969) (Area 11, 4), 12–13Google Scholar; ‘Excavations at Daima, N.E. Nigeria’, Palaeoecology of Africa, 4 (1969), 131–2; ‘Archaeological work in Bornu 1964–1966 with particular reference to the excavations at Daima mound’, Actes du Premier Colloque International d'Archéologie Africaine (Fort Lamy, 1969), 112–24. (A republication of item 4.); ‘Excavations at Bornu 38 and 70’, in Calvocoressi, D.Google Scholar, ‘Report on the Third Conference of West African archaeologists’, West African Archaeological Newsletter, 12 (1970), 60–3; ‘Precursors of Daima?’, West African Archaeological Newsletter, 12 (1970), 91–2; ‘Recent contributions to Bornu chronology’, West African J. Archaeology, 1 (1971), 55–60; ‘Excavations at Daima, N.E. Nigeria’, Actes du 6° Congrès Panafricain de Préhistoire — Dakar 1967 (1972); Chapter 9 in Shaw, Thurstan (ed.), Discovering Nigeria's past (Ibadan, 1975).Google Scholar

¹² Clark, J. D., The prehistory of Africa (London 1970), 198Google Scholar; Clark, J. D., ‘The problem of Neolithic culture in Subsaharan Africa’, in Bishop, W. W. and Clark, J. D. (eds.), Background to evolution in Africa (Chicago, 1967), 609Google Scholar, suggests a rather later date for this movement, writing of ‘after 2000 B.C.’ and, following Lhote's dating of the Egyptian influences in the later ‘bovidian’ style paintings in Tasili and his date for the final disappearance of the Neolithic there, Clark goes on to say: ‘Thus, from the close of the second millennium B.C. it may be expected that Saharan influences on the savanna and forest cultures of western Africa must have been considerably increased’.

¹³ Very much earlier evidence may exist buried deep in the silts of the Chad Basin.

¹⁴ van Zinderen Bakker, E. M. Sr, ‘Late Quaternary lacustrine phases in the southern Sahara and East Africa’, Palaeoecology of Africa, vi (1972), 18Google Scholar, citing M. Servant and S. Servant-Vildary, 87–92 in same volume.

¹⁵ Pullan, R. A., ‘Geomorphological and pedological investigations in the south-central part of the Chad Basin, Nigeria’, Palaeoecology of Africa, iv (1969), 49–52Google Scholar, treats these clays as lacustrine. Pullan, R. A., ‘The recent geomorphological evolution of the south central part of the Chad Basin’, J. West African Science Association, ix, 2 (1964), 115–39Google Scholar, suggests that the firki formed as a lagoonal deposit between the Bama and Ngelewa Ridges.

¹⁶ Grove, A. T. and Pullan, R. A., ‘Some aspects of the Pleistocene palaeogeography of the Chad Basin’, in Howell, F. C. and Bourlière, F. (eds.), African ecology and human evolution (London, 1964), 230–45.Google Scholar

¹⁷ For a vivid description of these mountains see White, Stanhope, Descent from the hills (London, 1963).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Soper, R. C., ‘The Stone Age in Northern Nigeria’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, iii, ii (1965), 175–94.Google Scholar

¹⁹ This site was first reported by R. C. Soper in 1964 in unpublished records belonging to the Nigerian Federal Department of Antiquities.

²⁰ During this research programme surface examination was conducted at 38 settlement mounds, of which 34 were in Nigeria, two in the Cameroon Republic and two in Chad. 20 of these mounds had settlements located on them, ranging in size from small villages to fair sized towns. 16 settlement mounds were unoccupied, although some of these (like Daima) had a village situated close by. Two mounds had remains of settlements abandoned in recent years. At present the area supports large numbers of cattle, sheep and goats and yields a double harvest of guinea corn each year: the tall guinea corn (dawa) harvested in November and the dwarf guinea corn (masakwa) which grows on the retained moisture in the soil and is harvested in January almost four months after the last rains. The retention of moisture in the soil is aided by digging low dykes to prevent loss of water by run-off during the actual rains. As a result in good years there is a grain surplus that is traded to other parts of Northern Nigeria. J. D. Clark has suggested that the socio-economic pattern of early agriculture in the firki region may not have been too different from that of the Nuer of the Upper Nile (Clark, J. D., ‘Mobility and settlement patterns in sub-Saharan Africa: a comparison of late prehistoric hunter gatherers and early agricultural occupation units’ in Ucko, P. J., Tringham, R. and Dimbleby, G. W. (eds.), Man, settlement and urbanism (London, 1972), 135).Google Scholar

²¹ Pullan, R. A., ‘Geomorphology and pedological investigations in the south-central part of the Chad Basin, Nigeria’, Palaeoecology of Africa, iv (1969), 49–52.Google Scholar

²² Review of work of Servants by E. M. van Zinderen Bakker Sr. as cited in note 14.

²³ Other sites comparable to Shilma include Bornu 55, 56, 57 and 75.

²⁴ Carte 1: Tchad, Lac, Documents scientifiques de la Mission Tilho (Paris, 1910).Google Scholar

²⁵ Connah, Graham, ‘Radiocarbon dates for Benin City and further dates for Daima, N. E. Nigeria’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, iv (1968), 313–320Google Scholar; Connah, Graham, ‘Recent contributions to Bornu chronology’, West African J. Archaeology, i (1971), 55–60.Google Scholar

²⁶ Daniels, S. G. H., ‘Time scales’ in Fagan, B. M., Iron age cultures in Zambia, i (London, 1967), 192–4.Google Scholar

²⁷ Tamers, M. A. and Pearson, F. J., ‘Validity of radiocarbon dates on bone’, Nature, 208 (1965), 1053–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

²⁸ See Connah, , ‘Radiocarbon dates for Benin City’, fig. 1.Google Scholar

²⁹ Connah, Graham, ‘Progress report on archaeological work in Bornu 1964–1966, with particular reference to the excavations at Daima mound’, in Northern History Research Scheme — Second Interim report (Zaria, 1967), 17–31Google Scholar; also published in Actes du Premier Colloque International d'Archéologie Africaine (Fort Lamy, 1969), 112–24.

³⁰ Connah, , ‘Radiocarbon dates for Benin City’Google Scholar, fig. 2 (reprinted in Shaw, Thurstan, ‘Archaeology in Nigeria’, Antiquity, xliii (1969), 187–99).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³¹ Freeth, S. J., ‘The provenance of a total assemblage of petrological finds from a Late Stone Age to Early Iron Age site at Daima, Bornu Province, Nigeria: preliminary results’, in A. Fagg (ed.) Papers presented to the Fourth conference of West African archaeologists (Jos, 1971), 58–61.Google Scholar

³² See, for example, Balout, L., Algérie préhistorique (Paris, 1958), 163.Google Scholar

³³ Connah, , ‘Progress report on archaeological work in Bornu 1964–1966’, 23.Google Scholar

³⁴ Cosner, A. J., ‘Arrowshaft straightening with a grooved stone’, American Antiquity, xvii (1951), 147–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁵ Identified as sorghum in 1971 by G. Jackson, at that time of the Department of Botany, University of Ibadan. Pennisetum was also identified, but only from Spit 2 of the main stratigraphy of Cutting VIII. J. R. Harlan of the Department of Agronomy, University of Illinois, also examined a sample of the carbonized sorghum and reported in a letter to Thurstan Shaw dated May 1971 that it was ‘clearly a caudatum race very much as they grow in the region today’.

³⁶ Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara. Professor Fagan's report is to be published in a joint study of the site by Connah and Fagan.

³⁷ Connah, , ‘Progress report on archaeological work in Bornu, 1964–1966’, 25.Google Scholar

³⁸ Connah, , ‘Radiocarbon dates for Benin City’, 320.Google Scholar

³⁹ Comparison of internal features of the stem-bore by X-ray, conducted by S. P. Bohrer, Department of Radiology, University of Ibadan, showed that there were some differences between the Daima fragments and the Yobe specimen.

⁴⁰ Wulsin, F. R., ‘An archaeological reconnaissance of the Shari Basin’, Harvard African Studies, X: Varia Africana, v (Cambridge, Mass., 1932)Google Scholar; Lebeuf, J.-P., ‘Prehistory, protohistory and history of Chad’, Proceedings of the First International Congress of Africanists (London, 1964), 78–9Google Scholar; Fagan, B. M. and Phillipson, D. W., ‘Sebanzi: The Iron Age sequence at Lochinvar, and the Tonga’, J. Roy. Anthrop. Inst., xcv (1965), 261–2.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ozanne, P., ‘The diffusion of smoking in West Africa’, Odu, new series, ii (October, 1969), 29–42.Google Scholar

⁴² This term is here used to describe any object of copper or copper-base alloy.

⁴³ Analysis by S. A. Adelaye and D. R. Goddard, Department of Chemistry, University of Ibadan.

⁴⁴ For example, in the Mandara Mountains (Sassoon, H., ‘Iron-smelting in the hill village of Sukur, North-Eastern Nigeria’, Man, lxiv (1964), 174–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar ) or in the southern part of the Chad Basin: Freeth, ‘Petrological finds’, 61.

⁴⁵ The writer employs the terms ‘contracted’, ‘flexed’, and ‘extended' burial as defined by Asbee, P., The Bronze Age round barrow in Britain (London, 1960), 69.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ In the hands of G. Gaherty, formerly Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara.

⁴⁷ In July 1971.

⁴⁸ The pottery drawings were done by Mrs J. A. Williams, draughtsman in the Department of Archaeology, University of Ibadan, in consultation with the writer.

⁴⁹ This term is employed as by Davies, O., West Africa before the Europeans (London, 1967).Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Monod, T. and Mauny, R., ‘Découverte de nouveaux instruments en os dans l'Ouest Africain’, Third Pan-African Congress on Prehistory (London, 1957), 242–7.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Willett, F., ‘A survey of recent results in the radiocarbon chronology of Western and Northern Africa’, J. Afr. Hist, xii (1971), 355.Google Scholar

⁵² de Heinzelin de Braucourt, J., Les Fouilles d'Ishango (Exploration du Pare National Albert, 2) (Brussels, 1957), 19.Google Scholar

⁵³ Addison, F., Jebel Moya (London, 1949)Google Scholar, Plates LXI and LXII. On dating see also Addison, F., ‘Second thoughts on Jebel Moya’, Kush, iv, 4–18.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Connah, Graham, The archaeology of Benin (Oxford, 1975), 32–3Google Scholar, discusses this subject.

⁵⁵ Nenquin, J., Excavations at Sanga (Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, 1957). 200–1.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ The writer is unhappy about the chronological implications of such terms and has employed them merely because of their convenience. The term ‘Neolithic’ is to be avoided in this context.

⁵⁷ Fartua, Ibn (trans. SirPalmer, H. R.), History of the first twelve years of the reign of the Maildris Alooma of Bornu (1571–1583) (Lagos, 1926).Google Scholar

⁵⁸ H. F. C. Smith, Department of History, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, personal communication.

⁵⁹ Al-Maqrisi cited by SirPalmer, H. R., The Bornu Sahara and Sudan (London, 1936), 193Google Scholar; cited also by Cooley, W. D., The Negroland of the Arabs (1841; 2nd ed., London, 1966), 120Google Scholar, who discussed the location of the area described.

⁶⁰ Lebeuf, J.-P., ‘Prehistory, protohistory and history of Chad’, Proceedings of the First International Congress of Africanists (London, 1964), 78.Google Scholar

⁶¹ See for example Gauthier, J.-G., ‘Récherches archéologiques dans la Reégion de la Benoué’, Actes du Premier Colloque International d'Archéologie Africaine (Fort Lamy, 1969), 165.Google Scholar

⁶² These oral traditions are still alive and have been repeated to the present writer on many occasions.

⁶³ Lebeuf, J.-P., Arehéologie tchadienne (Paris, 1962).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Cohen, R., ‘The just-so So? A spurious tribal grouping in western Sudanic history’, Man (1962), 153–4.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ The writer has examined and photographed many of the ‘So pots’ presently in use in the area (Plate IV), and talked about them with their owners. He has also seen them in the process of ‘excavation’ by the villagers.

⁶⁶ recorded, Barth ‘clay walls’ at Ngala in 1852 (A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, Barth's travels in Nigeria (Oxford, 1962), 219)Google Scholar but the eroded remains now visible at such sites make it impossible to distinguish between free-standing mud walls and earthen dump ramparts: on this distinction see Connah, Graham, ‘New light on the Benin City walls’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, iii (1967).Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Fartua, Ibn, Reign of Mai Alooma.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Mound 3 was apparently the highest of a group of mounds numbering possibly 11 in all. The maximum depth of deposit at Mound 3 was nearly 8 metres.

⁶⁹ Fartua, Ibn, Reign of Mai Alooma.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ These have been examined by A. J. and J. Hopson, formerly of the Federal Fisheries Service, Nigeria. Their report will be published with the excavation report on this site.

⁷¹ The mound excavated was apparently the highest of a group of mounds numbering at least 4.

⁷² Bivar and Shinnie, ‘Old Kanuri capitals’. In 1957 Rosman and Cohen excavated at this site without approval from the Nigerian Federal Department of Antiquities. Their work was stopped and has never been published. The present writer has examined the excavated material in the Jos Museum and the Department files relevant to the 1957 work. The material at Jos would merit description and publication: some of the pottery is particularly fine.

⁷³ Bivar, and Shinnie, , ‘Old Kanuri capitals’, 2–3.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Borassus aethiopum (identification by the writer).

⁷⁵ This mound is marked on the plan of this site (Fig. 1) in Bivar, and Shinnie, , ‘Old Kanuri capitals’, as ‘large mound’.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ The sample was from Cutting II.

⁷⁷ Cutting III. Cuttings I and II were in the midden mound.

⁷⁸ For example by Hallam, W. K. R., ‘Komadugu Yobe: the first and last river’ Nigeria Magazine, lxxvi (03 1963), 6.Google Scholar