New insights into early West African communities: Archaeological archives at National Museum Jos

The National Museum Jos, established in 1952 houses the second largest extensive legacy collection of archaeological, ethnographic, and archival materials in Nigeria, key to understanding past Nigeria’s communities. As part of the ongoing project, West African Communities as seen through Museum Collections, our research examines the museum’s largely unexplored legacy archaeological archival collections relating to the past Borno and Hausa people and communities. Through studies of these material collections, the paper will present new findings that will shed light on the region and broadly West Africa’s early social, political, and cultural system. Furthermore, we will propose new directions and methodologies for fostering valuable community engagement strategies for the development of national archaeological archives and historical reconstructions.