All Saints Secondary School Oyigbo, Rivers State.

History Department.


Week Ten

Topic – Historical sites in Nigeria ( Nok culture and civilization)

Location of Nok on the map of Nigeria.


Nok is a village in Jaba LGA of Kaduna state . Nok culture and civilization is the oldest civilization in West Africa.

Nok culture and civilization flourished between 900 BC and 200 AD in Taruga Jos, Plateau state.

The Nok People, Culture and Artifacts

The oldest sculptures found in Nigeria, even in the whole of black Africa are terra cottas from the Nok culture.The Nok culture is an early iron age population whose material remains were named after the Ham village of Nok in Kaduna state, where their Terra cotta sculptures were first discovered in 1928. The Nok people were smelters of iron and also agriculturists. Iron used in smelting and forging tools, appears in Nok culture by at least 550 BC and possibly a few centuries earlier.


Significance of Nok culture and civilization in the Nigerian history

  1. Nok culture influenced later cultures in the Niger river forest area . Notably , Igbo Ukwu and Ife.
  2. Nok culture provides the earliest example of iron smelting technology in sub Saharan Africa.
  3. The Nok culture bears evidence of the vitality of Nigeria’s cultural experience and achievements and of the possibility that all these remnants of its past must have been the work of it’s indigenous peoples .
  4. Nok culture and civilization exposed the wrong assertion by European writers about Nigerian history. Africans has been presented by many European writers as “a race without a past ” a people who never evolved a civilization of their own and contributed nothing to human progress.


  1. The discovery of the fine artworks produced by the Nok culture provided a helpful precedent that convinced any lingering doubters that the works of these later cultures were indeed that of indigenous black Africans.



  1. Mention and explain the importance of Igbo Ukwu culture and civilization in the Nigerian history.

Submit assignment at the school’s security post

Download Document Here: JSS 2 History Lessons


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