Zilum

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Zilum is a town 72 km north of Maiduguri in Borno state in northeast Nigeria .

A few years ago, archaeologists from the University of Frankfurt discovered a large, end-Stone Age settlement of the Gajiganna culture , which was once surrounded by an earth wall and had a population of up to 2,500. The previous phases of the Gajiganna culture were characterized by scattered and unpaved small settlements. The dating of the proto-urban settlement of Zilum to the middle of the first millennium BC BC opens up completely new perspectives for the history of the founding of states in West Africa. So far, archaeologists have only explained the growing social complexity by taking local factors into account. Historians suspect influences from the ancient Near East as a result of the fall of the Assyrian Empire in 612 BC. These developments could also be related to the spread of the haplogroup R1b-V88 into Inner Africa.

It is now known that Zilum was one of several fortified settlements from this period. They all stand at the beginning of an archaeological and historical sequence characterized by ever larger, more complex and fortified city-like settlements. Zilum very likely represents the germ of a form of urbanization on the African continent influenced by the ancient Near East.

literature

  • Magnavita, Carlos: "Zilum - Towards the emergence of socio-political complexity in the Lake Chad region", in: M. Krings and E. Platte (eds.), Living With the Lake Cologne 2004, pp. 73-100.
  • Magnavita, Carlos / Breunig, Peter / Ameje, James / Posselt, Martin: "Zilum: a mid-first millennium BC fortified settlement near Lake Chad". Journal of African Archeology 4, 1 (2006), pp. 153-169.
  • Lange, Dierk, "Immigration of the Chadic-speaking Sao towards 600 BCE" (PDF; 7.3 MB) Borno Museum Society Newsletter , 72–75 (2008), 84–106.

Web link

Coordinates: 12 ° 26 '  N , 13 ° 21'  E