*HIS1306 EARLY NIGERIAN HISTORY TO C.

1000*

[10/11/2022, 21:10:55] Imamu Monitor: _TOPIC ONE_

GEOGRAPHY OF NIGERIAN AREA

A. CLIMATE
B. VEGETATION

[10/11/2022, 21:10:56] Imamu Monitor: GEOGRAPHY OF NIGERIA

Nigeria is a country situated in the West African sub-region. It shares land
borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and
Niger in the north. Its coast lies on the Gulf of Guinea in the south and it
borders Lake Chad to the northeast. Some of the important geographical features in
Nigeria include the Adamawa Plateau, Mambilla Plateau, Jos Plateau, Obudu Plateau,
the Niger River, Benue River, and Niger Delta. Also Nigeria is found in the
tropics, where the climate is seasonally damp and very humid. Nigeria is affected
by four climate types; these climate types are generally gradated from south to
north.

[10/11/2022, 21:10:57] Imamu Monitor: A. CLIMATE

The Climate can be described as the long term and average weather conditions for a
specific region. Examples: Maritime climate, cold-dry desert climate, tropical
savannah climate, tropical mansoon climate etc. The climate is composed of
different components and factors. The followings are some important elements of
climate:

TEMPERATURE: Heat within the air indicates how hot or cold a place is and varies
from latitude and altitude. The sun is the source of all heat, measured with the
aid of thermometer. It influences the actual of water vapour present in the air and
also the rate of evaporation and condensation.

PRESSURED: This consists of a number of mixed gases and has weight with exerts on
the earth surface. It varies from place to place and from time to time.

RAINFALL: Rainfall refers to water droplets from the atmosphere. It occurs as a

result of evaporation from water bodies such as rivers, oceans, and transpiration
from plants, dew point is finally reached. The amount of rainfall is measured with
aid of a rain gauge.

WIND: This is air in motion, from high pressure to low pressure belts. It has
special mode of direction and is made up of series of dusts and eddies, capable of
carrying moisture, dust and other pollutants.

SUNSHINE: This is the visible part of the solar energy. It determines how dry the
wind is and aids the process of formation of clouds and rainfall.

Others include: Cloud, Humidity, etc.

[10/11/2022, 21:10:58] Imamu Monitor: B. VEGETATION

Vegetation is a general term for the plant life of a region; it refers to the
ground cover provided by plants, and is by far, the most abundant biotic element of
the biosphere. Vegetation can also be defined as the plant cover of the earth,
consisting of assemblages of plant. Nigeria's vegetation belts reflects the very
close link between vegetation and climate. The climate influences the vegetation.
Nigeria has two broad belts of vegetation types, namely:
A. Forest
B. Savannah

There is also the mountain vegetation of the isolated high plateau in the central
and far eastern part of the country.

FOREST: Forest are vegetation types or plant formations in which trees are the
dominants species. Nigeria has a heavily forest coastal south where humid tropical
conditions favour trees growth. Three forest zone can be sub divided from the coast
inland
1-Saline water Swamp (A good example is the Lekki Peninsula area east of Lagos)
2-Fresh water swamp (Example; Ogun, Imo, Benin, Niger Delta and Cross River)
3-Tropical evergreen rain forest (a belt with tall trees)

SAVANNAH
The word Savannah means a grassland area with no forest cover. The tropics under
grass or grass with scattered trees savannah vegetation in Nigeria consists of
three major belts, from south to north, which are;
1-Sudan Savannah
2-Guinea Savannah
3-Sahel Savannah

SUDAN SAVANNAH
This vegetation belt is found in the North-west stretching from the Sokoto plains
in the west, through the northern sections of the central highland. It spans almost
the entire northern states bordering the Niger Republic and covers over one quater
of Nigerian's total area. The low annual rainfall in this region is usually 4
months, starting from June to September (rarely to October) with the dry period
lasting 6 to 7 months. It sustains fewer trees and shorter grasses than the Guinea
Savannah. It is characterized by abundant short grasses of 1.52 metre. It is by far
the most densely human populated zone of Nigeria. Thus, the vegetation has
undergone severe destruction in the process of clearing land for the cultivation of
important economic crops such as cotton, millet, maize and wheat. Animal husbandy
especially cattle rearing is also influenced by the conducive nature of the
environment especially absent of tsetse fly. The trees of the Sudan Savannah
include the acacia, the shea-butter, baobab and the silk cotton. Sudan Savannah
region covers the present states of Sokoto, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Kebbi, Zamfara,
Northern Kaduna, Southern Bauchi, Southern Yobe etc.

GUINEA SAVANNAH
Guinea Savannah located in the middle of the country, it is the most extensive
vegetation belt in Nigeria, covering near half of the country. It extends from
Ondo, Edo, Anambra and Enugu states in the south, through Oyo state to beyond Zaria
in Kaduna State. It is a belt mixture of trees and tall grasses in the south, with
shorter grasses and less trees in the North. This is influenced by the local
climate condition of low rainfall and long dry periods. The average rainfall per
year is 1000-1400 mm. Guinea Savannah is the most luxuriant of the Savannah
vegetation belts in Nigeria.

During the first half of the dry season the savanna looks lifeless as the trees
stand bare but as we progress to the middle of the season, a smoke screen rises
over the savanna and the dry grass burns, this helps to prepare the land for crops.
By the time the first rain falls, the savannah comes alive with juicy shoots of
young grass and green leaves appearing.

The Sudan Savanna provides an excellent environment for agriculture and animal
farming in the Northen part of the country. It is a common site to see herds of
sheep, cattle and goats grazing on the vast pastures.

SAHEL SAVANNAH
This is the last vegetation zone in the North of Nigeria with proximity to the
fringes of the fast-encroaching Sahara Desert. It is located in the extreme
Northeastern part of the country, close to the Lake Chad, (states of Yobe, Borno
and Adamawa) where the dry season lasts for up to 9 months and the total annual
rainfal is 3 month annually. The area is dominated by several varieties of the
acacia and date-palms. The Lake Chad Basin, with ist seasonally flooded undulating
plains, supports a few tall trees. The Lake Chad also favours irrigation, without
which the cultivation would be virtually impossible.

[10/11/2022, 21:10:59] Imamu Monitor: NEXT TOPIC

MAN AND NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

[10/11/2022, 21:11:00] Imamu Monitor: MAN AND NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

Man which is variously known as humankind, human being and homo sapiens, does not
exist in a vacuum. This is because he is in what is known in ecology as an
environment. Man is an organism. All living things are known as organism while non
living things are known as physical components. Man like other organisms, is a
component of the environment. But unlike other living organism, man is a unique
being, a special creation that is composed of the physical, the social and the
spiritual being.

Natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring

naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. This environment encompasses the
interaction of all living species, climate, weather and natural resources that
affect human survival and economic activity. The concept of the natural environment
can be distinguished as components. Living organisms such as man, animals, plants,
and non living components such as forest, rocks, water, soil, relief etc influence
each other from the creation of the world up to the present time. Now, we are going
to study how natural environment influenced early man activities and how man also
influences his environment.

A. INFLUENCE OF NATURAL ENVIRONMENT ON EARLY MAN ACTIVITIES

FOREST
Million years ago, early man lived in forest. We clearly understood through
archaeological evidences or discoveries that, early man was a hunter and gatherer.
He used to follow all direction similar to how animals did. Forest was his initial
home. Thus, forest influenced him by allowing him to live. Before the emergence of
settlement, forest is the earliest home that man occupied since when he doesn't
developed ideas to start building houses.

RELIEF FEATURES
Natural relief features are important to early man in many ways. Relief features
are a factor that determine the weather and climate of a place. It influences the
changes in terms of choice settlement. It is very important to note that, during
the glacial period, relief features played a vital role by influencing early
species of man to live in Africa due to the ice-sheet in Europe and Asia. It was
only in Africa that the relief features was suitable for them to live. Therefore,
all the species of both man and animals migrated to Africa and occupied places due
to the suitability of relief features.

ANIMALS
Early man's life depended largely on hunting animals for nutritional purpose. Man
ate the remainings of animals meat hunted by wild animals to survive. As his brain
capacity gradually developed, he began to hunt the animals himself. Therefore,
animals contributed immensely in the life of early man.

B. INFLUENCE OF MAN ON NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

Rocks: rocks played an important role in the pre-historic through the Stone Age and
industrial age of man. The early man learnt to use rock in making tools for
farming, and hunting. Later stone is used to produce fire, as well as the art of
melting stone to considerable heat to produce iron and other related materials for
farming, hunting and warfare equipments. Modern man has gone further to use iron in
construction of transport means, roads, railways, sea and airports shelter and for
industrial use where most of our daily use domestically produced.

RELIEF
Relief features determine not only settlement but the occupation of man in terms of
animal rearing, types of crops cultivated and the farming method. Relief allows for
mining activity and determines types of mineral resources to be found in a place.

SOIL: For various reasons, soil is one of the most important components that man
cannot do without, virtually all human activies are done on soil. Except for few
that live on water; most human and animal population live on land that is mostly
covered by soil. Man's farming and hunting activities were and are taking place on
soil. Grazing of animals and forest products are made through the utilization of
soils. Without soil, there would be no vegetation, no crops for foods, no forest,
no flowers, or grasslands. To a great extent, life on earth depends on soil. Hence,
man began to use his capacity to change soil in so many ways especially through
construction of roads on soil, canals, building, railways, palaces etc. This
signifies how man began to influence his environment.

FARMING: Agriculture in non-industrialized societies relies on system of irrigation

run from natural water ways, animal powered ploughing and natural methods of
fertilizations. Animal powered plough agriculture and irrigation involve more time
energy, and material inputs than gardening, pastoralism, or hunting and gathering.
Different plant crops were cultivated in different places, depending on what wild
plants grew naturally and how well they responded to cultivation.

Consequently, the above activities of man led to occupation, settlements, division

of labour, rise of societies such as states, kingdoms and empires as well as
civilizations.

[10/11/2022, 21:11:00] Imamu Monitor: TOPIC 3

THE ORIGIN OF MAN

[10/11/2022, 21:11:01] Imamu Monitor: ORIGIN OF MAN

Students can understand this through👇🏻
A. EVOLUTION OF HOMINIDS
1-Homo Habilis
2-Homo Erectus
3-Homo Sapiens
4-Homo Sapiens Sapiens

B. EARLY MAN'S CULTURES

1-STONE AGE
2-BRONZE AGE
3-IRON AGE

Modern humans originated in Africa within the past 200,000 years and evolved from
their most likely recent common ancestor, Homo erectus, which means ‘upright man’
in Latin. Homo erectus is an extinct species of human that lived between 1.9
million and 135,000 years ago.

[10/11/2022, 21:11:01] Imamu Monitor: TOPIC 4

EVIDENCE OF EARLY MAN IN NIGERIAN AREAS

[10/11/2022, 21:11:02] Imamu Monitor: EVIDENCE OF EARLY MAN IN NIGERIAN AREAS

Archaeological research has shown that people were already living in south-eastern
Nigeria specifically Igbo-Ukwu, Nsukka, Afikpo and Ugwuele, 100,000 years ago.
Excavations in Ugwuele, Afikpo and Nsukka show evidence of long habitations as
early as 6,000 BC. However, by the 9th Century AD, it seems clear that Igbos had
settled in Igboland. Excavations at Igbo-Ukwu, Nigeria, revealed a 9th-century
indigenous culture that created highly sophisticated work in bronze metalworking.
The earliest known example of a fossil human skeleton found anywhere in West
Africa, which is 13,000 years old, was found at Iwo-Eleru in Isarun, western
Nigeria, and attests to the antiquity of habitation in the region.

The Dufuna canoe was discovered in 1987 a few kilometers from a village not far
from the Komadugu Gana River, in Yobe State, Nigeria. Radiocarbon dating of a
sample of charcoal found near the site dates the canoe at 8500 to 8000 years old,
linking the site to Lake Mega Chad. It is the oldest boat discovered in Africa, and
the second oldest known worldwide. The stone axe heads, imported in great
quantities from the north and used in opening the forest for agricultural
development, were venerated by the Yoruba descendants of Neolithic pioneers as
"thunderbolts" hurled to earth by the gods.

NOK CULTURE AND EARLY IRON AGE

The Nok culture thrived from approximately 1,500 BC to about 200 AD on the Jos
Plateau in north and central Nigeria and produced life-sized terracotta figures
that include human heads, human figures, and animals. Iron smelting furnaces at
Taruga, a Nok site, date from around 600 BC. The Nok culture is thought to have
begun smelting iron by 600-500 BC and possibly some centuries earlier. Kainji Dam
excavations revealed iron-working by the 2nd century BC. Evidence of iron smelting
has also been excavated at sites in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria in what
is now Igboland: dating to 2,000 BC at the site of Lejja and to 750 BC and at the
site of Opi. The transition from Neolithic times to the Iron Age apparently was
achieved indigenously without intermediate bronze production. Others archaeologists
have suggested that the technology moved west from the Nile Valley, although the
Iron Age in the Niger River valley and the forest region appears to predate the
introduction of metallurgy in the upper savanna by more than 800 years. The
earliest iron technology in West Africa has also been found to be contemporary with
or predate that of the Nile valley and North Africa, and some archaeologists
believe that iron metallurgy was likely developed independently in sub-Saharan West
Africa. Hence all the above discussion explain the evidences of early man and his
activities in distinct societies in Nigerian areas.
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