Precolonial Nigeria

This is the third festschrift in honour of the distinguished Africanist and historian, Toyin Falola. It complements earlier volumes, edited by Adebayo Oyebade, which focused on the colonial and post-independence periods of Nigerian history. Precolonial Nigeria contains 25 chapters arranged in five sections. The introductory section, comprising the first two chapters, is written by the editor; it contextualizes the entire volume and Falola's specific contribution to the historiography of nineteenth-century Yorubaland, his initial research focus. The next three sections – ‘Early foundations’; ‘Polities and institutions’; and ‘State, society and world systems’ – contain three, six and ten chapters, respectively. Contributions are by Rapael Alabi, Peter Breunig, David Aremu, Caleb Adebayo Folorunso, Ikechukwu Okpoko and Maduabuchi Ibeanu, and Babatunde Agbaje-Williams, who apply the methodologies of archaeology and anthropology to the study of agriculture in Nigerian communities, human occupation of the Chad Basin, metallurgical traditions, Tiv settlement patterns, Igbo civilization, and Yoruba urbanism, respectively.

African studies · Ancient history · Archaeology · Colonialism · Frontier · Historiography · Honor · Honour · Igbo · Independence (probability theory) · Sociology · Yoruba · African history and culture studies · Anthropology · Classics · History · Philosophy