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The National Museum of Jos as an Archaeological Archive: A Model for Museum-Based Research in sub-Saharan Africa

Le Musée national de Jos en tant qu’archive archéologique : un modèle pour la recherche muséale en Afrique subsaharienne
Abubakar Sule Sani

Résumés

Cet article s'attache à relever un défi méthodologique devenu de plus en plus pressant pour l'archéologie africaine : comment les archives de l'archéologie, incluant les collections d'artefacts, la documentation de terrain, les registres et la « littérature grise », peuvent-elles être mobilisées non pas seulement à des fins d'inventaire patrimonial et d'historiographie disciplinaire, mais comme sources de première main de données archéologiques capables de produire des connaissances historiques renouvelées sur les sociétés africaines du passé ? Le cas du Musée national de Jos démontre à la fois la nécessité et la difficulté d'un tel projet. Nous soutenons que les archives de Jos doivent donc être traitées comme un corpus stratifié, façonné par des régimes successifs de production et de gestion des données. L'écologie archivistique qui en résulte a été à la fois hybride et fragmentée. Pourtant, la fragmentation, comme nous le montrons ici, n'empêche pas l'archéologie archivistique ; elle définit les conditions dans lesquelles la connaissance archéologique peut être reconstruite de manière responsable à partir de « données patrimoniales ».

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The research that led to the issuance of the paper was supported by the British Academy Global Professorship project, “Looking Forward, Looking Back: Past and Present West African Communities Revealed through Museum Collections” (grant GP23/100008). I thank the volume editors and anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

Permission to access data and reproduce materials was granted by the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), the University of Ibadan, and Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. I am particularly grateful to the NCMM and the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan, for approval to publish Figures 2 and 5.

I thank Dr. Léa Roth for the encouragement to contribute to the volume and for editorial guidance, and to Mr Kas Funam for permitting me the use of a photograph. I am also grateful to Mr Olugbile Holloway, Mr Linus Kingi, Professor Ajala Suleiman, Professor Jonathan Aleru and all our research associates in Jos, Zaria and Ibadan, for their support and partnership. I especially want to extend gratitude to Professor Anne Haour for facilitating the BAGP project’s hosting and running at the Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia, and to Dr. Bolaji Owoseni for administrative and research facilitation as the Senior Research Associate to write the paper.

Introduction

  • 1 See for example J. Eboreime, 1995; O. Ogundele, 2004; A. Hellman, 2023.
  • 2 Z. Gundu, A. Idoko, 2012, p. 95; C. Folorunso, 2012.

1Over the last two decades, archaeological archives have increasingly attracted scholarly attention in Africa, particularly for their heritage and institutional dimensions.1 Far fewer studies, however, have examined these archives as primary sources of archaeological data, capable of producing new or renewed knowledge about past African societies.2

  • 3 C. Folorunso, 2012.

2This gap has become particularly salient as archaeological fieldwork across many regions of Africa faces growing constraints – insecurity, limited funding, ethical concerns about excavation, and uneven institutional capacity – increasingly restricting sites’ access.3 At the same time, large bodies of archaeological material recovered during the 20th century, often from sites that have since been destroyed, looted, or rendered inaccessible, remain stored in museums and research institutions, largely under-analysed and under-published. This situation raises a central methodological question, at the heart of recent debates in African archaeology: to what extent can archaeological archives themselves be mobilised as sources of first-hand data for reconstructing African pasts?

  • 4 P. Basu, 2012, p. 147-148.
  • 5 P. Basu, 2012, p. 154.

3This article addresses that question by examining the archaeological archives of the National Museum of Jos, Nigeria. Established in the early 1950s as the headquarters of the colonial Department of Antiquities, the Jos Museum emerged from a policy framework developed by the British Colonial Office in the late 1930s and 1940s, which sought the ‘preservation of monuments, relics and objects of archaeological, ethnographical or historical interest’ and advocated the creation of sustainable archaeological services across British West Africa.4 Reports associated with Julian Huxley and Hermann Braunholtz emphasised the need for a long-term institutional framework ‘commensurate with the importance of the Colonies and the value of their cultural possessions’, shaping the early orientation of museum-based archaeology in Nigeria.5

  • 6 A. Hellman, 2023.
  • 7 B. Fagg, 1956, p. 1.

4Within this framework, the appointment of Kenneth C. Murray as Surveyor of Antiquities in 1943 marked the formal institutionalisation of archaeological practice in Nigeria.6 Bernard Fagg’s subsequent work on the Jos Plateau and in the Nok region further consolidated Jos’s role as a central repository for archaeological materials (Fig. 1). Fagg’s well-known reaction to terracotta finds recovered from tin-mining gravels—‘a new culture had obviously come to light’—captures both the excitement generated by these discoveries and the contingent conditions of their recovery.7 Many of the assemblages that entered the Jos collections during this period were detached from controlled stratigraphic contexts, and the associated documentation varied considerably in quality and completeness. This situation has long limited their analytical exploitation.

  • 8 For full discussion on the evolution of previous Nigeria’s antiquities protection institutions, see (...)

5After Nigeria’s independence, this inherited archival landscape was reorganised rather than fundamentally transformed, notably by Decree No. 77 of 1979, which established the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM).8 In practice, this resulted in a fragmented but vibrant body of legacy archaeological data.

6In this article, the notion of an archaeological archive is employed in an operational sense, drawing directly on this institutional and research history. The archive is understood not simply as a space of storage, but as a corpus of artefacts, documentation, and classificatory practices that can be re-examined to generate archaeological interpretations. As work on Nigerian and West African archaeology has shown, revisiting legacy collections can refine chronologies, reassess technological practices, and interrogate earlier interpretative models.

  • 9 See for example R. Soper, 1965; P. Allsworth-Jones, 2019.
  • 10 See for example B. Fagg, 1977; P. Breunig, N. Rupp, 2016; G. Franke, 2016.
  • 11 See for example A. Bivar, P. Shinnie, 1962; P. Breunig, K. Neumann, 2002; C. Magnavita et al., 2006 (...)

7The article argues that the archaeological archives of the National Museum of Jos constitute a reservoir of under-exploited data that can be mobilised to renew archaeological knowledge of northern Nigeria (Fig. 1). Rather than offering a comprehensive synthesis of Nigerian archaeology, it focuses on the methodological process of working with these archives: identifying usable datasets, confronting gaps and biases in documentation, and assessing both the possibilities and the limits of archival reanalysis. Through selected examples drawn from Stone Age assemblages,9 Nok terracotta collections,10 and materials from the Lake Chad Basin,11 the paper illustrates how archival sources can be treated as archaeological data, while also highlighting the epistemic constraints imposed by the historical conditions of their production.

  • 12 Z. Gundu, A. Idoko, 2012; A. Sule, A. Haour, 2014.

8The article unfolds in four interconnected movements. It begins by situating the formation of the Jos archaeological archives within the broader colonial and postcolonial history of archaeological practice and museum governance in Nigeria. Attention then turns to the composition and organisation of the museum’s archival holdings, encompassing both artefacts and their associated documentation. Building on this foundation, the discussion presents case studies in which archival materials are revisited through contemporary analytical perspectives, detailing both the methods employed and the results obtained. The article concludes by reflecting on the obstacles, uncertainties, and partial failures encountered in this process, treating these limitations as intrinsic to any critical engagement with archaeological archives.12

9By foregrounding archives as sources of archaeological data rather than merely as institutional or heritage assets, this article responds directly to the objectives of this thematic issue. It demonstrates how legacy collections housed in African museums can be mobilised to produce new historical insights, particularly in contexts where traditional fieldwork is no longer possible, and argues for the centrality of archival archaeology in the future of archaeological research in Africa.

Figure : Mentioned locations

Figure : Mentioned locations

Wulga, 2025.

Situating the formation of the Jos archaeological archives: Colonial and postcolonial frameworks of archaeological practice in Nigeria

10The archaeological archives housed at the National Museum of Jos are inseparable from the historical conditions under which archaeological practice first emerged and developed in Nigeria. Their formation reflects a succession of colonial and postcolonial policies, research priorities, and institutional arrangements that shaped not only what was collected but also how archaeological data were recorded, classified, stored, and later reused. Situating the Jos archives within this more extended history is therefore essential for understanding both their research potential and their epistemic limitations.

  • 13 B. Fagg, 1959, p. 12.

11Formal archaeological practice in Nigeria began during the colonial period, when there was no dedicated governmental structure responsible for protecting antiquities or systematically investigating the material past. As Bernard Fagg later observed, when significant archaeological discoveries were first reported in the early 1940s, there was no ‘department of government with responsibility to preserve historical or archaeological remains, nor was there a university in the country; nor were funds available either from the central government or from local sources’.13 Archaeological collecting thus emerged in a context characterised by administrative improvisation, limited expertise, and strong dependence on individual initiative.

  • 14 P. Basu, 2012, p. 154.

12The establishment of the Nigerian Antiquities Service in 1943 marked a turning point in this regard. Influenced by Colonial Office policy statements and reports commissioned in the late 1930s, the British administration promoted a model of archaeological governance centred on the creation of museums that served as both repositories of material culture and instruments of heritage preservation. These reports explicitly advocated a cost-effective and sustainable approach, calling for ‘a long-term policy’ that would provide ‘the framework for the eventual development of archaeological services and museums on a scale commensurate with the importance of the Colonies and the value of their cultural possessions’.14

13Kenneth C. Murray’s appointment as the first Surveyor of Antiquities in 1943 gave institutional form to these ambitions. The Antiquities Services proceeded to establish, in 1945, the first museum in Esie (Fig. 1). Murray, initially trained as an art teacher, played a foundational role in establishing a centralised archival logic in which archaeological materials recovered across the territory were brought together under the authority of a national institution. This approach was further consolidated following the appointment of Bernard Fagg as Assistant Surveyor of Antiquities in 1947.

14Fagg’s tenure coincided with the rapid expansion of archaeological collections, particularly in northern Nigeria. On the Jos Plateau, large-scale tin-mining operations led to the accidental discovery of stone tools, terracotta figurines, and other archaeological materials embedded in alluvial deposits. These discoveries, often reported by mining engineers or geological survey officers, played a decisive role in shaping the early composition of the Jos archives. Yet the circumstances of these discoveries also meant that many objects entered museum collections divorced from their original archaeological contexts, accompanied by uneven or fragmentary documentation.

  • 15 For background information about the history of the Jos Museum, the antiquity services and NCMM see (...)
  • 16 B. Fagg preferred since 1946 two central museums: one in the south, and the second in the north wit (...)
  • 17 A. Fagg, Pers. Comm. 2025. She mentioned how B. Fagg had personal interest in securing finance and (...)

15The decision to concentrate these materials in Jos was not accidental. The foundation stone of the Jos Museum was laid in 1949, and the museum officially opened in 1952 as both an exhibition space and the headquarters of the Federal Department of Antiquities.15 Its location on the Jos Plateau, at the heart of the tin-mining region and near significant archaeological discoveries, made it a logical centre for the storage and research of archaeological materials.16 Under Fagg’s supervision,17 the museum developed as a purpose-built archaeological institution, housing not only artefacts but also field notes, registers, correspondence, and photographic records. What began as the curation of chance discoveries gradually evolved into an institutional tradition of assembling and managing national-scale archaeological archives.

  • 18 See L. Roth, 2023, p. 118-119.
  • 19 R. Soper, 1965; P. Allsworth-Jones, 2019.

16At the same time, the formation of the Jos archives was shaped by the research practices of individual archaeologists and by the broader expansion of archaeological inquiry in Nigeria during the 1950s and 1960s. Rescue archaeology associated with large infrastructural projects, most notably the Kainji Dam, generated substantial assemblages, such as those excavated by Donald Hartle in the Niger Valley, whose collections are now managed at the University of Ibadan (Fig. 5).18 Similarly, systematic research on the Stone Age of northern Nigeria by scholars such as Robert Soper and, later, Philip Allsworth-Jones contributed to the field; Philip Allsworth-Jones subsequently produced additional datasets, some of which were deposited at Jos while others remained in university repositories.19

Figure 2: Archaeological collections in the storage of the National Museum Jos

Figure 2: Archaeological collections in the storage of the National Museum Jos

A.S. Sule, 2025.

17This period also marked the beginning of a gradual decentralisation of archaeological archives. As university-based archaeology programmes developed at Ibadan, Zaria, Ile-Ife, and Maiduguri (Fig. 1), research projects increasingly generated collections that were retained within academic institutions for teaching and laboratory analysis. Collaborative agreements, such as those established between the NCMM and foreign research teams, formalised this arrangement, allowing materials to circulate between national museums and universities. While this decentralisation expanded research capacity, it also contributed to the fragmentation of archaeological archives and to the uneven distribution of documentation and artefacts.

18Following independence, these inherited structures were codified rather than dismantled. Decree No. 77 of 1979, which established the NCMM, reaffirmed the Commission’s authority over archaeological research and collections, stipulating that no excavation could be undertaken without official authorisation and that all antiquities ultimately fell under state custodianship. At the same time, the decree acknowledged the practical necessity of collaboration with universities and research institutes, thereby institutionalising a hybrid archival system. The Jos Museum remained the largest and most comprehensive archaeological repository in the country, but it now operated within a broader network of institutions managing legacy collections.

19The archaeological archives of Jos must therefore be understood as the product of layered historical processes: colonial policies aimed at centralisation and preservation; postcolonial expansion of academic research; and pragmatic responses to logistical, spatial, and political constraints. These processes shaped not only the content of the archives but also their internal organisation, their gaps and silences, and the possibilities for their reanalysis. Recognising this history is a prerequisite for treating the Jos archives as archaeological data. It allows the researcher to assess the conditions under which observations were recorded, objects were classified, and collections were assembled, and to identify both the potential and the limits of archival archaeology in the Nigerian context.

Composition and organisation of the National Museum of Jos archaeological archives: Artefacts, documentation, and archival practices

  • 20 J.A. Baird, L. McFadyen, 2014.

20Understanding the research potential of the National Museum of Jos (Figs. 2 & 3) as an archaeological archive requires close attention to the composition and internal organisation of its holdings. The archive is not limited to objects alone. It comprises a combined corpus of artefacts, paper records, registers, photographs, field documentation, and curatorial practices accumulated through successive phases of archaeological and museum activity. In this respect, the Jos archive functions as a layered body of ‘legacy data’,20 in which the interpretive value of material culture is shaped as much by the conditions of its documentation and storage as by the objects themselves.

  • 21 A.R. Fagg, Pers. Comm, 2025; L. Kingi, Pers. Comm, 2025.

21The institutional scope of the National Museum of Jos is vast within the Nigerian museum landscape. In terms of space and infrastructure, the museum is the largest in the country, incorporating a Zoological Garden, the Museum of Traditional Nigerian Architecture (MOTNA), the Centre for Earth Construction Technology (CECTECH), and the Institute for Archaeology and Museum Studies (IAMS), each operating with distinct administrative structures. The museum is administered by a Curator (Head of Station), and its staff (estimated at 300) supports mandates that include education, documentation, conservation, and research. These institutional characteristics are essential to archaeology because they determine the practical conditions under which collections are accessioned, stored, monitored, and made accessible to researchers.21

Figure 3: Entrance to the Jos Main Gallery and the permanent Nigeria pottery exhibition curated by S. Leith-Ross

Figure 3: Entrance to the Jos Main Gallery and the permanent Nigeria pottery exhibition curated by S. Leith-Ross

Mud anteroom to the right.

Funam, 2025

  • 22 O. Njoku, 1978, p. 2.
  • 23 A. Sule, 2025, p. 91.

22Within the museum, collections are distributed among four specialised storage facilities: ethnographic storage, archaeological storage, a repository, and the library, which also houses some documentary and manuscript resources (Fig. 4). The library holds approximately 6,000 books and periodicals and preserves archival manuscripts, including Arabic manuscripts from Sokoto and Kano (Fig. 1).22 This documentary component is essential because it situates the museum not only as a storehouse of artefacts but also as a site where written and material records intersect. The archaeological holdings consist of both accessioned collections and sizeable bodies of material in transition. Quantification is inherently tricky, a challenge familiar to archaeologists working with legacy collections, since materials are often stored as fragmented assemblages rather than discrete objects. Nonetheless, the archival corpus has been estimated at approximately 26,000 objects, including 22,336 ethnographic objects, 3,526 archaeological artefacts, and roughly 800 boxes of excavated material.23 Within the archaeological store, ceramic and pottery assemblages, including terracotta, are the largest category of material, reflecting the long-standing importance of clay-based technologies and figurative traditions in the region.

Figure 4: The library section of the National Museum Jos

Figure 4: The library section of the National Museum Jos

Place where archival manuscripts and rare collections are kept.

A.S. Sule, 2025.

  • 24 B. Fagg, 1956, p. 1; Annual report 1961/62 in Annual Report 1958-1962, Department of Antiquities, p (...)
  • 25 See D. Breternitz, 1975.

23A defining feature of the Jos Museum archive is the broad chronological and thematic range of its archaeological materials. The collections include Stone Age lithic assemblages from the Jos Plateau, which form the core of archaeological knowledge of early human occupation in northern Nigeria. These assemblages contain characteristic tools, including hand axes, cleavers, borers, and flake tools. They underpin reconstructions of Acheulian, Sangoan, Middle Stone Age, and Late Stone Age industries developed by early scholars such as Bernard Fagg, Robert Soper, and Angela Fagg, later refined by Philip Allsworth-Jones and others.24 Alongside these lithic corpuses are later archaeological materials associated with ironworking, ceramics, and ornamentation, such as metal objects, beads, cowries, smoking pipes, pottery, and modest skeletal remains, from sites including Kagogi, Jemaa, Zaria, and New Bussa (Fig. 1).25

  • 26 B. Fagg, 1956, 1959, 1977.
  • 27 N. Rupp, 2010; P. Breunig 2014; P. Breunig, N. Rupp, 2016; G. Franke, 2016, 2024.

24The Nok collections occupy a distinctive position in the Jos archive. Nok materials strongly shaped the museum’s early identity, and the ‘archaeology stores’ that became the foundation for the museum’s establishment were primarily built around terracotta finds recovered from mining contexts in the 1920s and 1940s.26 The museum’s holdings include stone tools, terracotta figurines, metallurgical remains such as tuyeres and furnace parts, pottery, and animal and human remains. In addition, the Jos archive contains documentary traces of Nok research trajectories, including materials associated with the early discoveries, the subsequent phase of deliberate excavation, and renewed research in the 21st century through collaborative projects involving Goethe University of Frankfurt/Main and Nigerian institutions.27

  • 28 A. Sule, 2025, p. 82 mentions RE-ORG as low-cost preventive conservation methodology developed in 2 (...)
  • 29 The religious and artistic value of the Nok figurines is still being studied. Scholars such as John (...)

25An essential dimension of the Jos archive, and one that illuminates both its research potential and its epistemic constraints, is the presence of significant quantities of Nok terracottas acquired through purchase rather than excavation. The museum is said to hold more than 2,000 terracotta figurines procured from private vendors, not yet accessioned, and currently shelved following the implementation of the RE-ORG methodology.28 These objects were acquired through a long-standing institutional strategy to discourage cross-border illicit trafficking by purchasing artefacts locally, a practice developed during the Antiquities Services period. Vendors were treated as ‘friends’ of the Commission, and their objects were kept in the museum as a form of protective custody. Yet these acquisitions also exemplify a central archival dilemma: objects recovered from unknown archaeological contexts pose serious challenges for accessioning, classification, and interpretation. They have high visual29 and historical value but limited contextual data, forcing archaeologists to confront the limits of provenance and documentation when treating museum holdings as archaeological datasets.

  • 30 Linus Kingi, Pers. Comm., 2025.

26The organisation of objects in the archaeological storage reflects a long-established tradition of curatorial practice across West Africa. Much of the archaeological material is stored in standard wooden boxes measuring approximately 50 × 30 × 30 cm, a format that has remained widely popular for the storage of archaeological materials, especially ceramics, across West Africa for the last 100 years (Fig. 2). Within these boxes, non-organic materials such as ceramics and stone objects are often kept bare, while smaller mobile objects—cowries, pipes, beads, spindle whorls—may be placed in textile bags. Terracotta figurines, due to their fragility, are padded with foam materials to reduce friction and vibration. According to the Museum’s current curator, fewer than 30% of the collections require special padding, and most items are considered stable under current storage conditions.30

27Nok objects constitute a special case in the storage system. Because of their size, form, and conservation requirements, Nok artefacts are either individually packaged or collectively placed on open shelves and not stored in boxes. This curatorial distinction reveals how storage arrangements participate in the categorisation of archaeological evidence: Nok is treated not merely as another subset of ceramics but as a separate class of objects requiring different archival logics. In archival terms, such differentiation can affect access, quantification, and the visibility of specific datasets within the broader museum ecology.

  • 31 A. Sule, 2025; A. Hellman, 2023.

28The museum archive is not without vulnerabilities. The physical infrastructure of storage facilities carries its own history, which directly affects the preservation of collections and the stability of the archive as a research resource. The museum’s main storage building, initially conceived as a two-storey structure but later executed as a bungalow, includes a drainage system installed beneath the building. Failures in this underground sewage and drainage system have created conservation challenges, including dampness, mould growth, and weakened concrete roofing, all of which pose different layers of hazards, including to staff.31 These material conditions are not secondary to the question of archival archaeology: they shape the long-term integrity of collections and constrain the kinds of research practices that can realistically be conducted on-site.

29Beyond the artefactual holdings, the archival archive includes associated paper and documentary resources. These consist of museum registers, accession records, field notes from legacy excavations, photographic documentation, and correspondence related to the movement of collections. The paper archive is a crucial component of the Jos dataset because it offers, however unevenly, the possibility of reconstructing the circumstances under which objects entered the museum and thus of recovering contextual information lost through early collecting practices. At the same time, the distribution of documentation across multiple institutions and the partial/periodic relocation of collections to universities for research engagement mean that such reconstruction frequently requires cross-institutional research and corroboration.

30The Jos archive thus stands as both a repository of extraordinary archaeological richness and a methodological challenge. Its composition reflects multiple phases of archaeological practice in Nigeria, from mining-driven discoveries and colonial collecting initiatives to post-independence research decentralisation and contemporary attempts to reorganise and safeguard collections. Its internal organisation, storage systems, and documentation practices make visible the conditions under which archaeological data have been preserved—and sometimes obscured. Treating these holdings as archaeological archives in the sense required by ‘archival archaeology’ therefore entails not only describing what is in the museum, but critically assessing what kinds of historical knowledge can be extracted from it, what gaps and silences structure the dataset, and what new analytical possibilities may emerge when legacy collections are re-examined with contemporary tools and questions.

31The following section builds on this description by presenting specific examples of how the Jos archival holdings, despite current gaps in provenance and documentation, can be re-approached as datasets for renewed archaeological analysis, including the production of revised chronologies, technological reconstructions, and contextual reinterpretations.

Re-approaching the Jos archives as archaeological data: A case study from Nok materials and their associated records

32A central premise of this article is that archaeological archives can be mobilised not merely as heritage repositories, but as corpuses of first-hand archaeological data capable of producing renewed historical knowledge. The National Museum of Jos provides a productive terrain for such an approach because it holds both large archaeological assemblages and the documentary records that accompanied their formation. Yet, as the call for papers of this thematic issue stresses, treating archives as archaeological sources entails confronting gaps, obstacles, and failures, rather than assuming that archival holdings function as transparent or complete datasets. The Nok materials curated in Jos offer a particularly instructive case for demonstrating this process.

Nok in the archive: A corpus built from mining, rescue, and purchase

  • 32 See O. Njoku, 1978, p. 2.
  • 33 B. Fagg, 1956, p. 1; 1959, p. 289; 1977, p. 12.

33The presence of Nok cultural materials in the Jos Museum is historically inseparable from the mining economy of the Jos Plateau and from the early colonial archaeology that developed around it. Recorded discoveries began in 1928, when a tin-mining company recovered a terracotta monkey head from tin-bearing gravels.32 The first official notification to an archaeological expert followed in 1943, when the Director of the Geological Survey reported the Jemaa terracotta33 head to Bernard Fagg, who had training in archaeology. These episodes illustrate that Nok entered the museum archive not through planned excavation but through chance discovery and rescue.

34When Fagg encountered these materials, he famously described the moment as a revelation, leading to the designation of the ‘Nok Culture’ after the place where it was first found. Yet, as the Jos archive makes immediately apparent, this initial act of naming was based on objects that emerged from disturbed contexts, removed from stratigraphic deposits through industrial extraction. Nok thus entered the documentary record of Nigerian archaeology under conditions that both enabled discovery and constrained interpretation.

35The archival corpus now associated with Nok in Jos is broad and heterogeneous. It includes terracotta figurines, stone tools, ceramics, and metallurgical remains such as tuyeres and furnace parts.

36However, one of the most analytically revealing aspects of the Jos holdings is the co-existence of two categories of Nok objects: those derived from documented excavations and those acquired through purchase. From the perspective of archival archaeology, this also raises foundational methodological questions: what can be done archaeologically with rich objects lacking secure provenance? How can such collections be reactivated without reproducing the epistemic limits of their conditions of acquisition?

Method: Re-reading registers, boxes, and storage as an archaeological dataset

37Working with Nok materials in the Jos archive requires a methodology that treats documentary and curatorial systems as part of the data itself. As discussed above, the museum’s holdings are not simply stored; they are organised according to long-standing storage logics. This system is not merely logistical; it structures visibility, accessibility, and research practice. A key archival step, therefore, consists in reconstructing the museum’s internal classification schemes and using them to map the types of objects present and their relationships to particular phases of collecting. Where Nok materials are associated with register entries and box numbers, it becomes possible to trace patterns in the assemblage: the distribution of object types, the presence or absence of documentation, and clusters of objects linked to particular sites, collectors, or episodes of discovery.

38This process is necessarily partial. The archive does not provide complete stratigraphic datasets. It provides instead a mosaic of objects and records produced under different historical regimes of field practice, industrial extraction, colonial rescue, early excavations, and later university-led fieldwork, and later reorganised through museum storage. Nok materials, therefore, require a form of ‘reconstruction’.

Results: What the Jos archive can (and cannot) make visible about Nok

39Approached as an archaeological dataset, the Jos archive enables several forms of renewed knowledge production, even when the data remain incomplete.

40The archive reveals the extent to which early knowledge of Nok culture was shaped by mining and rescue contexts. The very processes that made Nok sites visible in the 1940s—tin mining, deep alluvial extraction, and the reporting of discoveries by engineers—also produced a corpus in which archaeological context was often fragile or irretrievably disturbed. Fagg recorded terracotta finds emerging from deposits 2 to 12 metres below the contemporary surface, while the celebrated Jemaa terracotta head reportedly came from a depth of around 8 metres. Although such information does not constitute stratigraphy in the modern archaeological sense, it nonetheless provides valuable insight into the depositional environments from which early Nok materials were derived and the disturbances that affected them.

  • 34 Mallam Yusuf Potiskum, who died in 1979, served as a field assistant to Bernard Fagg. His son Umaru (...)

41The archive also reveals the crucial role of public archaeology and institutional mediation in shaping Nok research. Fagg’s work relied on cultivating awareness among miners and tributers, notably through outreach initiatives in which Mallam Yusuf Potiskum34 toured mining zones, distributing letters explaining the importance of archaeological materials and guiding workers in recognising cultural remains. This evidence demonstrates that Nok collecting emerged not solely from scientific observation but from processes of social mobilisation, communication, and negotiation involving multiple intermediaries. Seen in this light, Nok collections appear not simply as assemblages of artefacts but as products of historically specific interactions linking extractive industries, museum authorities, and local labour networks.

  • 35 Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XrD), X (...)
  • 36 See J. Jemkur, 1992; B. Fagg, 1959; N. Rupp, 2010; P. Breunig, 2014; P. Allsworth-Jones, 2019.

42At the same time, the Jos holdings open new possibilities for technical and comparative investigations of materials and production systems. The archive preserves evidence of ironworking, including tuyeres, furnace components, and slag residues, alongside terracotta figurines and ceramics. Such materials enable the revisiting of long-standing questions concerning iron technology, craft production, and the social roles of terracotta sculpture using analytical techniques unavailable to earlier researchers. As discussed elsewhere in this study, approaches including AMS dating, SEM, XRD, and XRF35 now make it possible to refine chronologies and examine technological practices beyond the typological frameworks that initially structured Nok scholarship.36

43Yet the archive also exposes a fundamental epistemic constraint: the growing presence of artefacts that are effectively ‘in transition’. While the museum’s acquisition of large numbers of vendor-supplied terracottas may have helped limit illicit trafficking, it simultaneously generated a corpus whose archaeological interpretation remains structurally limited. Objects recovered from undocumented contexts are difficult to accession, classify, contextualise, and date securely. Even so, their formal and material features can still contribute comparative evidence concerning stylistic variation, technological practice, and the circulation of forms across the Nok region. Within the framework of archival archaeology, such materials may still enrich ‘legacy datasets’, but only when methodological approaches openly acknowledge the uncertainties involved rather than obscuring them.

Obstacles, failures, and the limits of archival archaeology in Jos

44Working with the Nok archive also reveals practical and epistemic barriers of the kind emphasised by this thematic issue.

  • 37 It is not known when and how this material arrived at the Jos Museum.

45One obstacle concerns documentation. Early collecting practices did not consistently generate the kinds of contextual records expected today, and later decentralisation dispersed key archives across institutions. Some of the paper archives and field notes from southern Nigerian sites such as Ife, Benin, and Igbo Ukwu (Fig. 1) are present in Jos in limited quantities.37 Still, their very presence raises questions about duplication, displacement, and loss. In such situations, archival archaeology often proceeds by cross-referencing on partial documentation, museum registers, and published syntheses to reconstruct the most plausible context of objects.

  • 38 See above.

46A second obstacle concerns the storage conditions,38 whereas a third one concerns the politics of categorisation and access. Nok objects are singled out as requiring a different handling and shelving, whereas many ceramics and lithics remain in box-based storage. These storage logics shape what researchers are likely to see first, what becomes ‘prominent’ in the archive, and what remains buried in boxes. Archival archaeology, in this setting, requires not only re-reading field records but also re-reading museum systems as structures of visibility and invisibility.

47These limitations do not undermine the value of archival archaeology. Instead, they define its methodological terrain. The Nok case in Jos demonstrates that archaeological archives can indeed be treated as sources of first-hand data, but that the knowledge they generate emerges through a critical engagement with the conditions of discovery, documentation, storage, and institutional history. Rather than providing an unbroken chain from object to context, the archive offers a set of material and documentary traces that must be reconstructed, tested, and interpreted with attention to uncertainty. It is in this sense that the Nok holdings of the National Museum of Jos constitute a ‘cold case’ corpus: not because they are inert, but because their potential depends on the disciplined reactivation of ‘legacy data’ in light of contemporary analytical questions and tools.

48While the Nok materials provide an obvious example of how archival archaeology operates in practice, the Jos archive also contains other datasets, such as Stone Age lithic assemblages emerging from alluvial mining contexts, that can be similarly reapproached as sources for renewed archaeological interpretation, albeit with their own forms of archival constraint.

Stone Age lithic assemblages and mining archives on the Jos Plateau: Reconstructing early contexts from disturbed deposits

49If Nok provides an example of how museum archives may be mobilised to re-examine a mid-first-millennium cultural tradition, the Stone Age assemblages preserved at the National Museum of Jos offer a longer-term perspective on archival archaeology as a tool for reconstructing deep prehistory under conditions of disturbed deposition. These lithic collections form the foundation of much archaeological knowledge about early human occupation in northern Nigeria (Fig. 1). Yet, like Nok, they were assembled mainly through circumstances that complicate modern archaeological interpretation, particularly tin mining and gravel extraction on the Jos Plateau.

The corpus: Stone tools as the nucleus of the Jos archaeological archive

50The Jos Plateau is widely recognised as one of the most productive regions for Stone Age archaeology in Nigeria, in part because mining operations exposed archaeological materials embedded in alluvial and terrace deposits. The archaeological store that eventually became the Jos Museum was initially built to curate such finds, long before the museum was fully established as a national institution. This means that the Stone Age collections are not simply one dataset among others in Jos: they constitute the chronological and institutional nucleus of the archive.

  • 39 R. Soper, 1965; P. Allsworth-Jones, 2019.

51The lithic assemblages curated in Jos include materials commonly identified in Nigerian Stone Age sequences, including hand axes, cleavers, borers, scrapers, and flake tools, supporting the reconstruction of Acheulian and later industries. Earlier researchers such as Bernard Fagg and Robert Soper, and later Philip Allsworth-Jones, relied on precisely these collections to establish frameworks for understanding Stone Age technologies in northern Nigeria.39 The corpus thus represents not only archaeological evidence but also the material substrate of an entire historiography of early Nigerian prehistory.

Method: Using mining provenance and storage metadata as contextual substitutes

52A central challenge in working with Jos Plateau lithics is that much of the early material was recovered outside controlled excavation. Like some of the Nok terracottas, lithic finds often entered the museum through chance discovery in mining contexts. Context here must therefore be reconstructed through what might be termed archival proxies: mining locality data, depth estimates, collector information, and museum accession records. For lithic assemblages, depth measurements, gravel descriptions, and, when preserved, locality names are vital for interpreting depositional settings. They can help distinguish between materials derived from ancient river gravels, eroded terrace contexts, or redeposited sediments.

53In practical terms, reworking the lithic archive as archaeological data involves a sequence of steps that rely on museum documentation and curatorial systems:

  1. Inventory mapping of lithic materials by storage units (boxes, shelves)

  2. Cross-referencing accession numbers and registers to recover locality data

  3. Identifying collectors or reporting agents (miners, survey officers, museum staff)

  4. Grouping lithics by provenance reliability (secure locality/weak locality/unknown)

  5. Reassessing typological classification against modern analytical categories

54This procedure does not produce a perfect stratigraphic record, but a structured dataset capable of supporting renewed questions about technology and landscape use.

Results: Renewed knowledge production from legacy lithic collections

55When treated as archival datasets, Stone Age lithic collections in Jos allow for three forms of renewed analysis.

56These collections enable the reconstruction of early archaeological ‘hotspots’ first identified through mining activity. Even where precise coordinates are lacking, the recurrence of locality names within archival documentation reveals clusters of discovery and patterns of movement tied to colonial and postcolonial mining economies. Such reconstruction is significant, as it allows archaeologists to reassess early findings in light of contemporary landscape knowledge and to remap older evidence onto present understandings of regional settlement and activity.

  • 40 P. Allsworth-Jones, 2019.

57The same archival materials also permit revisiting legacy lithic datasets through contemporary analytical frameworks. As Allsworth-Jones has shown, earlier typological classifications and broad technological phases can be refined by examining reduction sequences, raw material selection, and overall assemblage composition in greater detail.40 Because the Jos archive preserves the material foundations of earlier syntheses, it provides a critical arena in which established interpretations can be reassessed and disciplinary knowledge incrementally strengthened.

58Lithic archives further assume particular importance where archaeological sites have since disappeared or become inaccessible. On the Jos Plateau, decades of mining, settlement expansion, and environmental transformation have profoundly altered the landscapes from which these materials were first recovered. Under such conditions, museum collections cease to function merely as supplementary evidence and instead become indispensable witnesses to past human presence, underscoring the enduring value of legacy data when the original archaeological contexts can no longer be studied directly.

59These limitations are precisely what make the lithic archive methodologically useful. By classifying assemblages according to provenance reliability and by making uncertainty visible rather than ignoring it, archival archaeology can still produce credible reconstructions. While the archive cannot replace context, it can discipline uncertainty.

Kainji and the Niger Valley rescue archaeology: Fragmented archives, dispersed collections, and the problem of re-aggregation

60While the Jos Plateau lithic case demonstrates how mining archives may serve as contextual substitutes for disturbed deposits, rescue archaeology projects provide another primary class of archival dataset in Nigeria. Among these, the archaeology of the Niger Valley associated with the construction of the Kainji Dam occupies a central place. Here, the archival problem is not only incomplete context but also dispersal: collections and documentation were produced at scale but later scattered across institutions.

The corpus: Large-scale rescue archaeology and the production of ‘legacy data’

61The Kainji Dam project generated a significant programme of archaeological fieldwork, resulting in the excavation and documentation of numerous sites threatened by flooding and landscape transformation. This kind of work produced a valuable dataset concerning deposits and sites that are now irretrievably altered by development and therefore can only be revisited through archival traces.

  • 41 On the Kainji project, see D. Hartle, 1970. See also D. Breternitz, 1975; N. Nzewunwa, 1983; A. Sul (...)

62Donald Hartle’s excavations in the Niger Valley produced collections and documentation that became key resources for Nigerian archaeology. Much of this corpus is now managed at the University of Ibadan rather than concentrated in Jos, highlighting the post-independence shift toward university-based research infrastructures (Fig. 5).41 The Jos Museum, nonetheless, remains historically connected to this phase of archaeological practice through its role in national custodianship and through the circulation of artefacts and documentation.

Figure 5. General view of the archaeological collections at the storage of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Figure 5. General view of the archaeological collections at the storage of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Courtesy of Léa Roth, 2021.

Method: Archival triangulation across institutions

63The Kainji case demonstrates that archival archaeology in Nigeria often requires multi-sited reconstruction. It is not enough to work within a single museum. The researcher must track how objects, reports, and images move among the NCMM’s central structures, the national museums (including Jos), and university repositories.

64In practice, reconstituting Kainji-related datasets involves:

  1. Identifying the documentary footprint

  2. Locating artefactual deposits in museum stores and university collections

  3. Comparing recording systems when available

  4. Rebuilding the site-to-object relationship (what belongs to what site)

  5. Assessing loss, duplication, and discontinuity

Results: What is gained through archival re-aggregation?

65What, then, does this approach yield archaeologically? One outcome is to make visible the scale at which rescue archaeology once generated data, often under conditions that would be difficult to reproduce today. Even where materials are now dispersed across institutions, the combined archival record allows renewed syntheses of settlement patterns and variations in material culture across the Niger Valley.

  • 42 G. Connah, 1976, 1981.

66The archive also reveals how institutional decentralisation shaped the trajectory of archaeological research in Nigeria. Connah provides an essential historiographical reference point for tracing these developments, and the dispersal of Kainji materials into university collections illustrates the broader transition from colonial, museum-centred governance of archaeology to the post-independence production of knowledge within academic institutions.42

67At the same time, rescue archaeology archives offer an empirical foundation for investigating landscapes that development projects have permanently transformed. Once dam construction submerges a region, its archaeological record cannot be revisited under comparable conditions. In such cases, archival collections cease to function as secondary documentation and instead become the primary evidence through which these past landscapes can still be studied.

Limits: Fragmentation as an epistemic condition

68The Kainji case also reveals a structural epistemic limit: large-scale projects generate large datasets, but without sustained institutional coordination, the relationship between objects and documentation becomes fragile over time.

69The Nigerian archival ecology established under Decree No. 77 of 1979, which we can describe as hybrid, partly decentralised, and distributed across multiple institutions, enabled research capacity but also made long-term archival coherence difficult. The result is that Kainji-related objects may survive while associated documentation becomes inaccessible, or documentation may remain while material disperses.

70This does not mean that archival archaeology fails. It means its practice is necessarily reconstructive and partial, operating through triangulation and critical assessment. Fragmentation is a research condition, and acknowledging it is essential to producing valid conclusions.

71Taken together, these three case studies reinforce the argument that Nigerian archaeological archives are not homogeneous corpora. Their structures vary according to the historical regimes that produced them: industrial extraction, colonial rescue, university field schools, and large-scale infrastructural salvage. Each produces distinctive combinations of objects and documentation, and therefore requires different archival methods. Yet all three cases—Nok, Stone Age lithics, and Kainji rescue archaeology—demonstrate the same broader point: museum and research archives can be approached as datasets capable of producing renewed archaeological knowledge about African pasts, precisely where direct site-based research is no longer possible.

Conclusion: Museum archaeology as a strategic research pathway under contemporary constraints

72The preceding sections have argued that the archaeological archives of the National Museum of Jos can be reapproached as primary datasets capable of producing renewed historical results. These results remain partial and uneven, structured by the gaps and biases inherent to legacy collections. Yet, precisely because of these constraints, the Jos case highlights a broader implication for archaeological research in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa: museum and archival archaeology are no longer secondary or ‘supporting’ approaches to fieldwork, but strategic pathways for sustaining archaeological knowledge production as access to excavation becomes increasingly constrained.

  • 43 Z. Gundu, A. Idoko, 2012, p. 95; C. Folorunso, 2012, p. 162.

73This argument does not assume that excavation has lost its value. Instead, it recognises a profound transformation in the conditions under which field archaeology has operated across the continent. In many regions of Africa today, archaeological work is confronted with insecurity, increasingly complex permit regimes, chronic underfunding, and the ethical difficulties posed by excavation practices that extract material from sites whose preservation cannot always be guaranteed. Scholars have observed that such pressures have contributed to the growing inconsistency in field-based research outputs and publication practices, particularly when research infrastructures have weakened. Field schools have struggled to maintain continuity.43

  • 44 B. Fagg, 1959, p. 12.

74The Nigerian case illustrates these pressures particularly clearly. During the mid-20th century, the expansion of archaeological work benefited from the institutional and administrative apparatus of the colonial Department of Antiquities, as well as the accidental exposure of sites through mining and infrastructure development. Yet, as Bernard Fagg noted when documenting early discoveries, archaeology operated in conditions where ‘there was no department of government with responsibility to preserve historical or archaeological remains, nor was there a university in the country; nor were funds available either from the central government or from local sources’.44 This historical statement captures a structural tension that continues to shape archaeology in Nigeria: the discipline has always been forced to negotiate between ambitious research goals and weak or unstable institutional support.

  • 45 See for instance L. Roth et al., 2021.
  • 46 G. Connah, 1976; D. Breternitz, 1975.

75In the post-independence period, Decree No. 77 of 1979 established the NCMM and reaffirmed state custodianship over archaeological research and collections. At the same time, the growth of university archaeology programmes at Ibadan, Zaria, Nsukka, Ile-Ife, and later Maiduguri (Fig. 1) expanded research capacity and shifted the locus of archaeological training and publication. Yet, despite this expansion, several scholars have expressed concern that research results often remain unpublished or are inconsistently disseminated, producing a field in which the accumulation of data does not necessarily translate into cumulative historical knowledge.45 In this landscape, museum-based archives assume greater significance because they stabilise research resources over time, even as fieldwork cycles fluctuate. The relevance of museum archaeology becomes even more apparent when one considers the fate of archaeological sites and landscapes documented during the 20th century. Nigerian archaeology is deeply marked by processes that affect the buried heritage: looting, urban development, environmental disasters, erosion, armed conflicts, and insecurity. Tin mining on the Jos Plateau, for example, was the very mechanism through which Nok and Stone Age materials were first discovered. Still, it also contributed to the destruction and disturbance of deposits. Likewise, large-scale infrastructure projects such as the Kainji Dam generated major archaeological datasets through rescue operations, while permanently transforming the landscapes that produced them.46 In these circumstances, museum collections are not simply an alternative to excavation; they may represent the only surviving material pathway to particular pasts. Museum archaeology thus becomes strategic in two closely related senses. First, it provides a means of extending the analytical value of prior fieldwork by re-examining the artefacts and records already produced. The Jos collections contain assemblages whose original excavation or recovery contexts are incomplete, but whose study can be renewed through contemporary analytical tools—typological reassessment, comparative study across collections, and archaeo-scientific methods. Such tools allow archaeologists to extract new information from ‘old’ collections, sometimes producing results that were not achievable at the time of excavation. Second, museum archaeology supports the production of ‘legacy datasets’ that are actively reconstructed through archival labour: cross-referencing museum registers, reconstructing object histories, assessing the reliability of provenance, and identifying biases in the formation of collections. The case studies presented above show that the archaeological archive is rarely complete. It contains silences, dispersals, broken chains of documentation, and categories shaped by institutional histories. Yet, by confronting these limits rather than ignoring them, we could produce datasets that are analytically transparent about uncertainty and therefore usable for cautious historical reconstruction. The Nigerian museum landscape, however, highlights that museum archaeology is not simply a technical choice—it is a political and institutional problem. Curatorial realities condition research access, the visibility of specific datasets, and the long-term integrity of the archive. Museum archaeology also requires acknowledging the physical vulnerabilities of museum infrastructures. If museum archaeology is to function as a strategic research pathway, then the maintenance of archival infrastructures becomes a central concern for the future of archaeology itself. Finally, the Jos case suggests that museum archaeology offers a distinctive epistemological advantage: it forces the discipline to confront how archaeological knowledge is produced. Mining finds, purchase collections, rescue excavations, and university deposits each generate different kinds of data, shaped by different recording systems and institutional goals. In this sense, museum archaeology is not simply archaeology without excavation—it is a mode of inquiry that makes visible the processes of selection, preservation, categorisation, and loss through which the archaeological past becomes knowable. For these reasons, museum archaeology should be approached as a strategic and complementary pathway to fieldwork in Nigeria and across sub-Saharan Africa. It does not replace excavation, but it extends the life of archaeological data beyond the moment of discovery. It enables the reconstitution of ‘cold cases’ through the disciplined re-reading of legacy collections and documentation, and it provides a basis for renewing historical discourse precisely when conventional field approaches become difficult or impossible. Yet museum archaeology also has its own failures. Some collections resist reconstruction because documentation is missing; some objects cannot be securely assigned to sites; and some assemblages remain inaccessible due to conservation constraints or institutional fragmentation. Rather than disqualifying archival archaeology, these failures define the limits within which archaeological knowledge can be responsibly produced from ‘legacy data’. They are not marginal to the method; they are its necessary conditions.

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Notes

1 See for example J. Eboreime, 1995; O. Ogundele, 2004; A. Hellman, 2023.

2 Z. Gundu, A. Idoko, 2012, p. 95; C. Folorunso, 2012.

3 C. Folorunso, 2012.

4 P. Basu, 2012, p. 147-148.

5 P. Basu, 2012, p. 154.

6 A. Hellman, 2023.

7 B. Fagg, 1956, p. 1.

8 For full discussion on the evolution of previous Nigeria’s antiquities protection institutions, see N. Nzewunwa, 1983, p. 118; B. Fagg, 1956; P. Basu, 2012; C. Fiki-George, 2018, p. 18-19; A. Hellman, 2023; Annual Report of the Antiquities Service for the Year 1956-57, 1961, p. 1-4.

9 See for example R. Soper, 1965; P. Allsworth-Jones, 2019.

10 See for example B. Fagg, 1977; P. Breunig, N. Rupp, 2016; G. Franke, 2016.

11 See for example A. Bivar, P. Shinnie, 1962; P. Breunig, K. Neumann, 2002; C. Magnavita et al., 2006; G. Connah, 1976, 1981.

12 Z. Gundu, A. Idoko, 2012; A. Sule, A. Haour, 2014.

13 B. Fagg, 1959, p. 12.

14 P. Basu, 2012, p. 154.

15 For background information about the history of the Jos Museum, the antiquity services and NCMM see A. Sule, 2025, p. 83; Annual Report of the Antiquities Service for the Year 1956-57, 1961, p. 1-4; A. Hellman, 2023, p. 146.

16 B. Fagg preferred since 1946 two central museums: one in the south, and the second in the north with diverse collections and a smaller regional institution to care for local materials—against the preference of Kenneth Murray, who advocated for a single national museum in Lagos.

17 A. Fagg, Pers. Comm. 2025. She mentioned how B. Fagg had personal interest in securing finance and his artisanal skills to build the Jos Museum. See also B. Fagg, 1977, p. 16.

18 See L. Roth, 2023, p. 118-119.

19 R. Soper, 1965; P. Allsworth-Jones, 2019.

20 J.A. Baird, L. McFadyen, 2014.

21 A.R. Fagg, Pers. Comm, 2025; L. Kingi, Pers. Comm, 2025.

22 O. Njoku, 1978, p. 2.

23 A. Sule, 2025, p. 91.

24 B. Fagg, 1956, p. 1; Annual report 1961/62 in Annual Report 1958-1962, Department of Antiquities, p. 54; R. Soper, 1965; P. Allsworth-Jones, 2019.

25 See D. Breternitz, 1975.

26 B. Fagg, 1956, 1959, 1977.

27 N. Rupp, 2010; P. Breunig 2014; P. Breunig, N. Rupp, 2016; G. Franke, 2016, 2024.

28 A. Sule, 2025, p. 82 mentions RE-ORG as low-cost preventive conservation methodology developed in 2017 by ICCROM to reorganise museum collections in the storage.

29 The religious and artistic value of the Nok figurines is still being studied. Scholars such as John Boyi also see an ideological basis for their production (J. Boyi, 2025, p. 14).

30 Linus Kingi, Pers. Comm., 2025.

31 A. Sule, 2025; A. Hellman, 2023.

32 See O. Njoku, 1978, p. 2.

33 B. Fagg, 1956, p. 1; 1959, p. 289; 1977, p. 12.

34 Mallam Yusuf Potiskum, who died in 1979, served as a field assistant to Bernard Fagg. His son Umaru Yusuf Potiskum, born in 1963, worked later with P. Breunig on the Frankfurt Nok research team.

35 Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XrD), X-ray fluorescence (XrF).

36 See J. Jemkur, 1992; B. Fagg, 1959; N. Rupp, 2010; P. Breunig, 2014; P. Allsworth-Jones, 2019.

37 It is not known when and how this material arrived at the Jos Museum.

38 See above.

39 R. Soper, 1965; P. Allsworth-Jones, 2019.

40 P. Allsworth-Jones, 2019.

41 On the Kainji project, see D. Hartle, 1970. See also D. Breternitz, 1975; N. Nzewunwa, 1983; A. Sule, A. Haour, 2014.

42 G. Connah, 1976, 1981.

43 Z. Gundu, A. Idoko, 2012, p. 95; C. Folorunso, 2012, p. 162.

44 B. Fagg, 1959, p. 12.

45 See for instance L. Roth et al., 2021.

46 G. Connah, 1976; D. Breternitz, 1975.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Figure : Mentioned locations
Crédits Wulga, 2025.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/docannexe/image/5883/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 452k
Titre Figure 2: Archaeological collections in the storage of the National Museum Jos
Crédits A.S. Sule, 2025.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/docannexe/image/5883/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 258k
Titre Figure 3: Entrance to the Jos Main Gallery and the permanent Nigeria pottery exhibition curated by S. Leith-Ross
Légende Mud anteroom to the right.
Crédits Funam, 2025
URL http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/docannexe/image/5883/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 276k
Titre Figure 4: The library section of the National Museum Jos
Légende Place where archival manuscripts and rare collections are kept.
Crédits A.S. Sule, 2025.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/docannexe/image/5883/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 248k
Titre Figure 5. General view of the archaeological collections at the storage of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Crédits Courtesy of Léa Roth, 2021.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/docannexe/image/5883/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 65k
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Abubakar Sule Sani, « The National Museum of Jos as an Archaeological Archive: A Model for Museum-Based Research in sub-Saharan Africa »Afriques [En ligne], 16 | 2025, mis en ligne le 02 avril 2026, consulté le 13 mai 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/5883 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/161vy

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Abubakar Sule Sani

British Academy Global Professor, Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia

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