New Radiocarbon Dates From Archaeological Sites in Parts of Igboland, Southeastern Nigeria

Abstract

This paper presents new results of radiocarbon (14C) ages from archaeological sites in northern Igboland. The study was designed to shed more light on early human occupation and activities in the study area based on sediments from cave and iron-smelting sites. The approach consisted of ethnographic, archaeological, palynological, and slag analyses; these were complemented with 14C dates. The technology adopted as well as the paleoenvironmental conditions that prevailed during the period of human settlement in both sites was revealed. These data, complemented by 14C dates, highlight the human behavioral and subsistence patterns within the region and are comparable to those from similar sites in southeastern Nigeria.

Igbo-Ukwu at 50: A Symposium on Recent Archaeological Research and Analysis

“…However, in research programs devoted to regional sequences, a first millennium CE gap is present: In the Niger Delta, excavations at six sites secured 32 radiocarbon dates, of which 28 had all of their 2-sigma range in the second millennium CE; two of the rest were in the early to mid-first millennium CE (Nzewunwa, 1980(Nzewunwa, , 1983. In northern Igboland, excavations on four iron smelting sites produced radiocarbon dates between 500 and 200 BCE for early smelting, and the ninth/ tenth century CE and onward for later smelting (Daniel et al, 2022;Eze-Uzomaka, 2013;Okafor, 1993). Elsewhere in Igboland, relatively few site investigations have included radiocarbon dating, but of those, early iron-using sites cluster in the first millennium BCE, and later Iron Age sites produced dates in the second millennium CE.…”