West African cultural landscape: Settlement distribution, environmental determinism and material interpretation of Zigam hill-top settlement, Nigeria

Cultural landscape approach is concerned with the constructions and uses of environment around human in the past. This branch of archaeology appreciates the understanding of the features constructed, utilized or modified by man, which in return the remains are found dotted on the part of the earth occupied by human in the past. This paper focuses on reconstructing the cultural landscape of Zigam hilltop site, as to appreciate the relationship between the people that occupied the hilltop site in the past, the features/materials on the hilltop and the environment they occupied in the past, through the extensive survey of the settlement. The paper includes the report of the bearings, positions and proximities of material remains dotted on the landscape of Zigam hilltop settlement. This paper is a product of archaeological survey, oral tradition and written sources which all yielded in documenting the cultural landscape of the Zigam settlement. The paper revealed the evidence of settlement distribution such as collapsed building, granary and house foundations, dyeing complex and cemeteries, among others. Environmental determinism and the materials were interpreted. The paper concludes with the place of hilltop, defensive structures, Tsamia stream, presence of clay mining, fertile land, among many others as factors that might have influence the settlement establishment and the growth in the past.