New perspectives on the emergence and growth of Surame, northwest Nigeria

An Historical Archaeology Study

Bibliographic Data

ID6041705
AuthorsAliyu Adamu Isa (Ahmadu Bello University, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume61
Issue2
Pages1-18
Publication date2025-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAzania Archaeological Research in Africa (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0067-270X • E-ISSN: 1945-5534
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0067270x.2025.2588048
OpenAlexW7108070573
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited17

The Hausa city-states of northern Nigeria appear abruptly in written records only around the latter half of the second millennium AD when Islam linked them to a global network and a tradition of literacy but almost nothing is known about their various stages of growth. Surame, in the Kebbi River Valley and linked to the kingdom of Kebbi, is a key site that has excellent survival of both archaeological monuments and occupation layers corresponding to pre-and post-fifteenth-century phases. A new phase of work has used the plan of Surame as it existed in the sixteenth century and correlated this with the surviving traces that can be seen today. A total of thirteen test pits were dug across the site, while two that yielded the most cultural materials were chosen for more detailed excavation. The research reported here focuses on the changing characters of the ceramics, baked clay beads and subsistence economy from one occupational phase to the next. The Surame site was clearly settled before the foundation of the Kebbi kingdom in the sixteenth century and economic activity in terms of food production, storage, processing and consumption, as well as craft production, was well developed much earlier than previously thought. Archaeological evidence indicates that there is more continuity than change between the two settlement phases

Chronology · Historical archaeology · Historical ecology · Post-medieval archaeology · Prehistoric archaeology · Prehistory · African Education and Politics · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Construction Engineering and Safety

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