Pre-colonial history of Northern Nigeria Pre-colonial history of Northern Nigeria The pre-colonial history of Northern Nigeria encompasses the history of Northern Nigeria before the advent of European explorers and the subsequent pacification of Northern Nigeria by the British Empire. In pre-historical times, the area known as Northern Nigeria was home to the Kwatarkwashi/Nok culture. Elements of human civilisation have also been discovered around the Niger River near Kainji Dam. Around the 7th century the Kabara Nation under the control of the Kabara's emerged in Northern Nigeria. Around the 9th century an upheaval of unexplained origins saw a transference of power from these matriarchal monarchs and
History of Nigeria that created highly sophisticated work in bronze metalworking, independent of any Arab or European influence and centuries before other sites that were better known at the time of discovery. 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. Microlithic and ceramic industries were also developed by savanna pastoralists from at least the 4th millennium BC and were continued by subsequent agricultural communities. In the south, hunting and gathering gave way to subsistence