Preliminary Comparative Analyzes of Prehistoric

Figurine Traditions in West Africa

Ruivo Ferreira Burmann, André Luiz
(Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main/Germany;

[email protected])

Key Words

West Africa, Nigeria, “Neolithic”, Iron Age, Nok Culture, Gajiganna Complex, figurines, deposition patterns

Introduction
The article’s aim is to present the preconditions, the goals and some work in progress of a PhD-project on the archaeological context of prehistoric West African figurines[1].

Being connected to the so-called “Frankfurt team” as a student since 2011, the author evermore encountered the research on the famous Central Nigerian Nok Culture. Funded by the German Research Association (DFG) and in close cooperation with the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments, as well as the University of Maiduguri respectively the University of Jos and the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria in Nigeria, the Goethe University is known for their work in Northeastern Nigeria since 1989 (Breunig/Neumann 2002, Magnavita 2004, Breunig 2004, 2005, Breunig et al. 2006, 2008) respectively in Central Nigeria since 2005 (Rupp et al. 2005, Breunig 2009a, 2009b, Rupp 2010, Breunig 2014, Breunig/Rupp 2016).

[1] The PhD-project is funded by the Research Training Group Value and Equivalence (German Research Association (DFG) & Goethe University Frankfurt am Main/Germany) and supervised by Prof. Dr. Peter Breunig from the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main.