page_title: History of West Africa
section_title: Nok culture
hierarchical_section_title: History of West Africa / Cultural history / Iron Age / Nok culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Character with chin resting on his knee. Nok sculpture, Nigeria. Français&#160;: Personnage reposant son menton sur son genou, sculpture de la civilisation Nok, Nigeria.
context_page_description: The history of West Africa has been commonly divided into its prehistory, the Iron Age in Africa, the major polities flourishing, the colonial period, and finally the post-independence era, in which the current nations were formed. West Africa is west of an imagined north-south axis lying close to 10° east longitude, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and Sahara Desert.
  Colonial boundaries are reflected in the modern boundaries between contemporary West African states, cutting across ethnic and cultural lines, often dividing single ethnic groups between two or more states. During the Holocene, sedentary farming began to develop in West Africa. The Iron industry, in both smelting and forging for tools and weapons, appeared in Sub-Saharan Africa by 1200 BCE, and by 400 BCE, contact had been made with the Mediterranean civilizations, and a regular trade included exporting gold, cotton, metal, and leather in exchange for copper, horses, salt, textiles, and beads. The Nok culture would develop. and vanished under unknown circumstances around 500 AD, thus having lasted approximately 2,000 years. The Serer people would construct the Senegambian stone circles.
context_section_description: In central Nigeria, around 1500 BCE, the Nok culture developed on the Jos Plateau, until it vanished under unknown circumstances by 200 or 300 CE. It was a highly centralised community. The Nok people produced miniature, lifelike representations in terracotta, including human figures, human heads, elephants, and other animals. Iron use, in smelting and forging for tools, appears in Nok culture in Africa at least by 550 BC and possibly earlier, prior to 1000 BC.
  Based on stylistic similarities with the Nok terracottas, the bronze figurines of the Yoruba kingdom of Ife and the Bini kingdom of Benin are now believed to be continuations of the traditions of the earlier Nok culture.
caption: Nok sculpture, terracotta, Louvre
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