Settlement Studies and Associated Problems in West Africa

Abstract

The paper examines settlement studies in the West African sub-tropics. It discusses the various traditions of settlement studies in West Africa with particular reference to Nigeria .The traditions are: socio-cultural and ecological traditions. The position of the paper is that though these traditions have been introduced and used in West Africa, as archaeologists, we have not been able to benefit immensely from them because of some problems which are discussed in this paper. What the archaeologist has are just glimpses of the past. Our ability to reconstruct the past, therefore, depends largely on the soundness of our methodological approaches. The identified problems must be overcome if we are to benefit from these traditions.