Origin of Complex Societies in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This article considers the earliest evidence of complex societies in sub-Saharan Africa. The evidence derives from two archaeological entities located in Nigeria, West Africa: the Gajiganna Culture of the Chad Basin and the Nok Culture of Central Nigeria. Studies of both cultures, carried out by the author’s team during the last years, indicate a significant cultural change during the 1st millennium BC. The change concerns social, economic, and technological aspects, described and discussed for each of the two mentioned cases. It is supposed that the change was a nucleus of social complexity that triggered further developments up to the great West African empires emerging from the end of the 1st millennium AD onwards.