Gajiganna culture
Coordinates: 11 ° 50 ′ 5 ″ N , 13 ° 9 ′ 5 ″ E
The Gajiganna culture (approx. 1800–400 BC) is one of three relatively well-known Late Stone Age complexes in West Africa. The other two are Dhar-Tichitt in southern Mauritania and Kintampo in Ghana . The origin of the Gajiganna culture is probably in the southern Sahara , perhaps in the area around the Aïr Mountains . More than 4,000 years ago, groups of ranchers moved to the area southwest of Lake Chad , around the present-day city of Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria , and founded the first settlements here.
The main characteristic of the Gajiganna culture is a ceramic decorated with scratching, stabbing, weighing belt techniques (RSW techniques) and mat imprints. Their well-known material culture also includes stone artifacts such as arrowheads, hatchets, and grinders, as well as bone artifacts such as points, scrapers, and ring beads . The structure of the ceramics according to technical and decorative elements as well as a series of C14 dates allowed the complex to be arranged chronologically in three phases:
- Phase I (approx. 1800–1500 BC) is characterized by a highly polished ceramic on which no mat imprints appear. The sites consist of mostly small (approx. 1 ha) and flat settlements, which speaks for a short-term settlement. This is the pastoral phase of the complex. Cattle, sheep and goats were kept. Fishing, hunting and the gathering of wild plants were practiced.
- Phase II (approx. 1500–600 BC) is divided into IIa (approx. 1500–1200 BC), IIb (approx. 1200–1000 BC) and IIc (approx. 1000–600 BC) . Chr.). Their distinguishing feature is ceramic decorated with, among other things, mat prints. The sites are of a more permanent nature and now consist of up to 4 hectares of settlement mounds. The first indications of soil structure can be seen at the end of Phase IIa, in the form of prints of Pennisetum (Pennisetum glaucum) on ceramic shards. In addition to soil cultivation, cattle breeding, hunting, fishing and the collecting of plants are still carried out. From approx. 800 BC The settlements again consist of small (approx. 1 ha), flat, short-term inhabited settlements.
- Phase III (approx. 600–400 BC) is due to the appearance of new ceramic forms such as B. marked large storage vessels. The ceramics are mostly decorated with mat prints and the economy is characterized by a marked intensification of soil construction and storage. Livestock, hunting, fishing and gathering are still practiced, but only play a subordinate role. The sites consist of flat settlements and their extent is variable. They form a hierarchical system with small (approx. 1–2 ha), medium-sized (approx. 3–8 ha) and large settlements (approx. 9–12 ha). Archaeological prospecting and excavations at Zilum have shown that they represent the first fortified settlements from the Chad Basin and some of the first in all of sub-Saharan Africa. Historians suggest that this early urbanization and the general increase in social complexity during this period were related to the Founding of states in Central Sudan around 600 BC By refugees of the collapsing Assyrian empire .
After the end of Phase III, no further traces of the Gajiganna culture are known in the region. Settlement continues: about 2000 years ago the first material traces of people who produced and used iron objects appeared. The Iron Age begins in the Chad Basin.
literature
- P. Breunig: Groundwork of human occupation in the Chad Basin, Northeast Nigeria, 2000 BC-1000 AD. In: A. Ogundiran (Ed.): Precolonial Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola . Africa World Press, Trenton 2005, pp. 105-131.
- P. Breunig, K. Neumann, W. Van Neer: New research on the Holocene Settlement and Environment of the Chad Basin in Nigeria. In: African Archaeological Review. 13, 2, 1996, pp. 111-145.
- P. Breunig, K. Neumann: From hunters and gatherers to food producers. New archaeological and archaeobotanical evidence from the West African Sahel. In: FA Hassan (Ed.), Droughts, food and culture. Ecological change and food security in Africa's later prehistory. Kluver Academic / Plenum Publishers, New York 2002, pp. 123-155.
- D. Lange: The founding of Kanem by Assyrian Refugees ca.600 BCE: Documentary, Linguistic, and Archaeological Evidence. Boston 2011 (PDF; 1.6 MB).
- C. Magnavita: Zilum. Towards the emergence of socio-political complexity in the Lake Chad region. In: M. Krings, E. Platte (Ed.): Living with the Lake. Cologne 2004, pp. 73-100.
- KP Wendt: Gajiganna. Analysis of Stratigraphies and Pottery of a Final Stone Age Culture of Northeast Nigeria. In: Journal of African Archeology Monograph Series. Vol. 1. Frankfurt am Main 2007.