The Nok Culture. Flourishing between about 500 B.C.E. and 200 C.E. on the Benue plateau of present-day Nigeria, the ancient Nok culture produced some of the earliest examples of West African sculpture, terra-cotta figurines characterized by simple facial features and bulging eyes with pierced pupils. The art of these Iron Age people influenced evolving cultures north and south of the Niger- Benue confluence as well as east and west of the Niger and its delta area. Nok civilization is thus part of an extensive continuum that includes the Igbo-Ukwu, Ile-Ife (also called Ife), Owo, and Benin cultures, which developed after the year 500.

Metallurgy. According to Christopher Ehret, iron ore was in abundance at scattered sites throughout West Africa, and iron smelting had emerged independently within the region by the first millennium B.C.E. Ironworkers eventually became a protected class, or guild...