Daima

A series of large mounds in northeastern Nigeria, which constitute the remains of early farming villages on the southern flood plain of Lake Chad and were occupied from about 600 BC-1200 AD. For the first five centuries, the Daima people only had polished stone axes and tools of bone, plus stone grinders and querns. There is pottery present from first occupation and evidence of domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats. Cultivation of sorghum was important, as was hunting and fishing. Iron was introduced the 1st-6th centuries AD. Some centuries later, however, Daima became part of a more wide-ranging trade system.

A large occupation mound in the extreme northeast of Nigeria, on the seasonally inundated plains adjacent to Lake Chad. The site’s occupation began shortly before the middle of the last millennium be, but reflected the continuation of a life-style that had been established in the area at least 500 years earlier. Herding of cattle and cultivation of sorghum were the joint bases of the econmy. Stone for tool manufacture had to be imported, but iron was introduced at some as yet poorly defined time between the 1st and 6th centuries ad. The adoption of iron was apparently not marked by any discontinuity in the archaeological sequence. Some centuries later, however, more pronounced change took place as Daima became part of a more wideranging trade system; it is tempting to link this phenomenon with the rise of the kingdom of Kanem.