Igbo Net: Ahiajoku Lecture Series:: the 1982 Ahiajoku Lecture, A.O. Anya

The Environment of Isolation
or
the Ecology and Sociology of Igbo Cultural and Political Development

Anya O. Anya

Professor of Zoology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Formerly: Dean, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Dean, Faculty of Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Director, School of Postgraduate Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Chairman, Imo State Library Board.

Ony’isi anyị, Ndi ochịchị anyị, Ndi Eze, Nd'Ibe, Nd'Ọbịa ekelem-ụnụ,

Nd'Igbo Kwenu, Igbo Kwenu, Kwezuonu

Today should be for me, however undeserving the homecoming. In more than the biblical sense, the prodigal has returned. But it is not the individual prodigal who has3eturned. It is, hopefully, an entire and otherwise lost generation. For it was my generation of Nd'Igbo who were born in the twilight period between the demise of traditional Igbo society, following the depredations of thc Slave Trade and the establishment of British colonial hegemony, and the consequent rise of western values; the latter event was merely the predictable consequence of our cultural capitulation.

My generation of Nd'Igbo has pursued western education with assiduous avidity and (if I may so suggest), remarkable success. Not surprisingly, we have been in the forefront of that cycle of imitation characteristic of the particular type of western acculturation shown by our educated elite, and which our Chinua Achebe recaptured so vividly in his character, Obi, the younger Okonkwo of No Longer at Ease. The latter was appropriately the grandson of the other Okonkwo of Things Fall Apart.

But good can come from the most unlikely quarters. It is this same generation whose recognition of its irredeemable loss has been touchingly recaptured in the labours of love undertaken so joyfully by The Ahiajoku Lectures Committee under the able leadership of Chris Duru and Gaius Anoka and their many mentors and helpers. The search for a Pan-Igbo identity and consciousness, and its hoped-for discovery in the not-too-distant future may yet prove the most tangible benefit of this generation's alienation and confusion. For this, future generations, if I may boldly prophesy, will always be in the debt of the present Imo State Government whose generous impulse and foresight as allowed this laudable endeavour. As my people in Abiriba would say: aka ụnụ ji jide udo, jita ya ike – may the arms holding the rope grow stronger.

Modesty and humility are virtues worth pursuing in ours, as in other cultures, and today should imprint the need for such virtues indelibly in my consciousness. A false variety of modesty and humility can, however, on a day like this reduce the profound and poignant sense of occasion which the day justly demands if its full lessons and significance are to be recognized and appreciated. Nd'Igbo are not noted for the facility with which they bestow accolades on their own and when they do, the frivolous has no place despite recent appearances to the contrary. Life for our people is a serious business and is so pursued, but not without humour or playfulness. While as a people we are full of self-deprecation, we are also full of appreciation. It is against this background that while full of surprise and even skepticism that this day of honour should belong to me, I am full of gratitude to the Government and people of my home State who in choosing me made it possible. I recognize then that I am but a symbol of my generation for our people: a symbolic gesture here to honour and celebrate our present amidst our concern for the future and our corporate will to know and understand ourselves. For self-knowledge is for man the truly distinct and unique attribute. And ours is a very humane society as Chieka Ifemesia has shown. Nd’Igbo ekele kwalam ụnụ. May your shadow never grow less.

My training as a biologist enjoins me to study and to attempt to understand the various ways in which living things especially animals (which includes man) survive by coming to terms with their environment. Biologists often enquire as to the relevant characteristics of each organism as well as of the environment in which it lives. The understanding of the mechanisms governing the mutual interaction of organism and environment, and the consequences of such interaction have been of fundamental importance in unraveling the mysteries associated with life. This is the realm of biology called ecology. This understanding has been the cornerstone of the tremendous advances in the two applied biologies of medicine and agriculture.

The central pillar of modern biology, the theory of evolution has also been built upon such understanding. The theory, like man, stands on two legs: on the twin concepts of biological variation and natural selection. The idea of biological variation rests on the premise that in any population of a given organism there will always be differences between one individual and another and hence variation. Natural selection on the other hand, suggests that as a result of the observed differences between individuals, some individual organisms are in consequence fitted to survive better in particular environments than their peers. Such survivors are obviously better adapted to their environments. Adaptation to the environment is thus a necessary consequence of the living state: better adapted members of a given population become dominant in the environment given time. The demographic conurbation which is Mbaise and Orlu, which are no modern day developments, attest to the dominance of Nd'Igbo in the forests of West Africa, in spite of, and not because of the ritual of ewu ukwu.

It was the French physiologist Claude Bernard who in a justly famous and oft-quoted statement drew attention to the two-dimensional character of the environment of an organism He suggested that we should recognize the environment internal to the organism in contradistinction to the environment external to the organism. These interdependent aspects of the environment, in his view, defined the realm of those factors which the organism can control (or regulate) as distinct from those beyond its control. Thus the idea of regulation and with it an equilibrium state of stability are necessary features of the concept of environment. However, this concept, it should be noted, has meaning and validity only if we recognize or segregate an identifiable entity: in biological terms an individual organism or population or species and in sociological terms the individual man, clan or race or mankind.

In these our modern and scientific times, the two concepts of evolution and environment have found expression in other disciplines outside biology. We do talk of the economic environment or the intellectual environment or conversely of the evolution of political systems or the evolution of monetary systems, etc. Whenever either concept is used, implicit is the attempt to underline the interactive character of life, whether of the individual or of a group. Moreover, we should observe that whether our consideration concerns the individual or a population or a society, there is always associated with interaction, an opposing quality, of integration – the tendency to conserve. Thus, while interaction is outward-directed, integration is inwardly directed. In the words of Koestler, "organisms and societies are multi-leveled hierarchies of semi-autonomous sub-wholes branching into sub-wholes of a lower order...” Think of Nd'Igbo with our myriad families, clans, kindreds, villages and in our latter day modern times, autonomous communities. As the Igbo elder would say “aka olu ruta manu, ya ete aka ozo" – “What touches one touches all”. Thus, the part and the whole are subsumed in each other. The Igbo view of life would seem to be predominantly holistic rather than analytic: we tend to see the total picture, not parts of it. It would be the burden of our discussion to suggest that this essentially ecological approach to nature and reality arises from an intuitive appreciation of the need for a harmonious balance between integrative and interactive dimensions of life. Implicit in the idea of evolution also is the premise that simple forms give rise to complex forms. Thus, in organisms as in societies, there is always an implied and intrinsic organization underlying the complexity of a given system. Indeed, the stability of a system is derived from the degree of order imposed through organization.

In biology, as more recently in sociology, the principle of organization has been a creative force in evolution, and has made for greater efficiency in time and resources. Indeed, as Simon pointed out on the basis of systems theory "complex systems will evolve from simple systems much more rapidly if there are stable intermediate forms than if there are not...” Mathematicians and logic circuit technologists have amply demonstrated the truism of this observation in our new computer age. The conclusion seems apposite that biological and sociological evolution of man are continuous and related phenomena. This has been underlined by the emergence of the new discipline of sociobiology. However the relationship of biology and sociology to history must also be appreciated.

As should now be obvious, in both biology and sociology, the interactive as well as the integrative aspects of man as an individual entity must always be in harmonious balance. But history can be viewed as the record of these biological and social evolutionary processes or as the summary and summation of the cumulative acts of self-assertive individuals. In either case, the cultural context of our investigation is relevant. Thus, the definition of the identity of the Igbo must be seen not merely in the narrow perspective of history but as part of the progressive unraveling of the evolutionary tapestry of mankind. Within such a framework, we should hopefully come to understand not merely who we are but more importantly why we are where we are and why we are the way we are. It is just possible that it is only then that, to borrow an aphorism from Chinua Achebe we may at last understand “where the rain started to beat us". If my effort today succeeds in illuminating but the periphery of the forest where the path may lie, I would regard my duty as adequately discharged.

We may start our enquiry by considering first of all the particular influences and factors which can account for the general lack of information or appreciation of man’s life, activities and evolution in our particular environment. A recognition of these is called for if we are to understand fully the significance of the few facts which can be gleaned from contemporary records of our past and if these are to be seen (and understood) in their proper context and perspective.

Indeed, an inescapable fact of our contemporary world is the near total dominance of the intellectual environment of our “modern” times by western man. The reconstruction of man’s prehistory, the collation of the facts considered significant in the history of the world, as well as the definition and interpretation of assumed watersheds in the “ascent of man” through history' have been achieved predominantly through the exertions of western man. Much of the world’s people, including ourselves, have had to see and understand themselves through the reflected light of the intellectual prism of western man. Not surprisingly, our image of our world and our vision of the past and the future are often unconsciously cast in western terms and against the background of western assumptions, prejudices and even interests. It is logical to expect, therefore, that any errors, omissions or de5ciencies in the intellectual framework erected by western man for understanding our world will become propagated through other cultures, with consequent distortions of reality and facts as seen in these other cultures, So it would seem to have been with us.

In this regard, it is pertinent to remind ourselves that the environment conditions man's perception of himself, of the world around him and of the manner in which the labours of his life can be pursued. The environment gives shape to human culture. Thus, differences in the physical environment of man may be expected to become transferred as differences in man’s perception of the world around him and his interpretation of the varied phenomena of nature and hence as cultural differences. For example the environment of western man has always been in the main temperate and cold while that of the African man has always been tropical and warm. These phenomenological differences have had fundamental biological consequences in the operations of nature in both environments.

Diversity and stability are the most striking features of the tropical world while uniformity and regularity within a reasonable degree of homogeneity are common features of the temperate landscape. There is for example no tropical equivalent of the uniform pine forest of the temperate clime. It is also instructive to reflect that an important epoch in western thought was inaugurated by Descartes when he popularized the technique of investigating the operations and phenomena of the natural world by breaking up objects or processes for study into their component units. This essentially atomistic but analytical (cartesian) approach shaped the consciousness of western man and causally initiated the scientific method of enquiry, making possible the emergence of science and technology as human pursuits. The social and cultural consequences in our era of this event have been revolutionary as the chroniclers of western civilization such as Brownowski are never tired of proclaiming.

It is tempting to suggest that the cartesian model of the world could only have developed in an environment in which nature provided fewer conceptual building units. In such an environment, with fewer units to nature's jigsaw puzzle it is easier to see the relationship of the component units of nature to the whole and vice versa In our tropical world, on the other hand with diversity and complexity as the norm, and stability often an unexpected consequence, it makes sense to evolve a conceptual frame of reference for the natural world whose substructure is anchored in an essentially holistic view of nature. In other words, the western man who sees the trees before the forest and the traditional African who saw the forest with scant regard for the trees were reacting each lo an intellectual model of his world generated by their conditioning environment. Yet, it is this holistic mode of perceiving the world, characteristic of our thought and conceptual frame, which the African intellectual has often ignored in his study of the phenomena of the African world.

Given these inevitable environmental differences between the Western World and the African World, it seems plausible to suggest further that the underpinning concepts of various disciplines, as scientific as they are, do betray too often the occidental bias of their origin. These concepts when applied to the African situation may be expected to give in many cases incomplete, distorted or misleading pictures of natural phenomena in the tropical African environment. This expectation is met in various disciplines. In such areas of study, new facts generated by studies in Africa have often radically transformed perspectives or shown up the insufficiency of long accepted concepts to explain the total situation in the wake of new light cast by observations from Africa. As the saying goes “out of Africa, there is always something new”. In biology, for example, this has happened in our studies of the tropical rain, forest which has transformed ecological concepts as well as in our study of human evolution. In geology, the reconstruction of the chronology of the African pluvial periods is already changing the earlier picture of the temperate glacial periods. In archeology recent studies in Africa have enforced the need to revise the significance and chronology of the so-called Stone and Iron Ages as well as their associated cultures. What has happened to modern historiography in the wake of the re-emergence of African history despite the Trevor Ropers of this world is a saga whose impacts are continuing. To an audience of predominantly Nd’Igbo it is perhaps not out of place to remind ourselves, consistent with the point I wish to make, that this new approach started with Dike’s Trade and Politics on the Niger.

The great significance of that book, justifiably a modern classic, was to underline the fact that African history can only be reconstructed and understood within the context of its African environment. Thus, an understanding of any aspect of African life must by extension originate from an understanding of the operative African conditions. Against such a background, even old facts can acquire new relevance. It cannot be gainsaid then that the transference of conceptual stereotypes developed in other environments and cultures, especially the occidental, have for too long distorted our perception of various facets of African studies and life.

Two examples from archaeology will suffice. In cultural chronology, the Bronze Age is supposed to precede the Iron Age. In Africa the indications are the reverse. In the study of the economy of early cultures the progression is supposed to be from the hunter-gatherer, through sedentary agriculture to pastoralism. Ecological determinants can in fact change either sequence depending upon what can easily be procured in a given environment. A counterbalance to occidental reconstructs informed by a healthy intellectual skepticism grounded in ecology is called for in the African scholar. Consequently, the test of any conceptual model should be how well it answers the questions posed by the realities of our locale and not how well it fits into what may prove artificial and hypothetical analogues from other environments whose operative logic is often different. Quite apart from this ideological misapprehension of African realities, studies of our past have been greatly hampered by a technical problem. The humid and acid conditions of the African soil environment especially in the forest region has led to a general paucity of surviving cultural artifacts. Destruction has often been equated erroneously with non-existence. It is our hope that our discussion today will attempt consciously to skirt these potential pitfalls in our effort to understand the origin and cultural evolution of Nd'Igbo in their particular biological environment. All I would ask for from the authorities from various disciplines is to keep an open mind and to attempt to think logically even within new and unfamiliar conceptual frameworks.

III

If we accept the notion that environments shape culture, we are faced with the need to understand what other factors may have directed the development of the environment of Africa and particularly that sector of Africa which is occupied by Nd’Igbo. These factors should be looked for in geology, geography and in climatology. By shaping the physical environment, geology, geography and especially the climate, determine the possibilities and direction of biological evolution and hence of cultural evolution in a given environment. It may be expected that changes in any of these factors over time may have far reaching cultural consequences since culture being dynamic responds to changed circumstances.

Africa, thirty million square kilometres of it, bestrides the equator from 37ºN to 35ºS but its peculiar shape of an inverted but lop-sided triangle determines that two-thirds of the continent lie above the equator. This massive land, the geologists claim, was the centre piece of what was a very extensive proto-continent – Gondwana-land – which fractured early in the Earth’s history, giving rise to Australia, South America, parts of Asia and Europe, et cetera as the pieces drifted apart. Thus, much of Africa, if I may consciously over-simplify the situation, is a stable platform of ancient rocks, mainly granitic sandstone, which has been modified to a limited extent by erosion. Later movements in the Earth's crust gave rise to the fault system in East Africa – the Rift Valley System in which later subsidence and upliftment of sections generated the extensive Lake System and the mountain ranges in the eastern face of the continent from Ethiopia down to Tanzania. A minor fault in the west, gave rise to the Cameroons Mountain and the Adamawa Highlands. These delimit the eastern border land of the physical environment of Igboland. The mountains of the extreme North (the Atlas Mountains) and of the extreme South (the Drakensberg Mountains) complete the picture.

Much of Africa is thus a peneplain of average altitude usually over 2,000 feet – an extensive plateau which give way gently but abruptly to the coastal plains. This basic geology has been modified in some places by changes in the extent of water-bodies leading to the intrusion of sedimentary rocks in places, for example in the Sahara and parts of what is now Somalia. Upliftment and subsidence have helped to mould the surface of large segments of the continent into large depressions separated by ridges. This has determined the outline of the drainage systems in which the main river basins drain into the sea through gaps in the rims of the ridges and depressions. These gaps arc also the natural routes for the extensive migrations of the peoples of Africa in prehistory. The river systems and their basin¿ as a result of these geological features arc concentrated in the western section of the continent, through much of Central Africa and down to the eastern face of the East African highlands. West, Central and Eastern Africa have been, through prehistory, one contiguous environment in which man wandered with rather local but often temporary barriers to his movements. The hydrological pattern, dictated by the geology of Africa has thus been of great significance in African cultural evolution as pointed out by Mabogunje when he reminds us that "some of the earliest sites of human occupation are to be found alone streams and river courses, round lakes and on the sea-shore...” These were the pathways of prehistory Africa.

The geography and climate of Africa moreover has been set by features dictated by the Earth’s wind system. Set more or less symmetrically over the equator, Africa's climate and environmental zones have been molded by both the north-south and the south-north wind systems. The direction of these winds over much of Africa through the seasons is determined by the existence of four centers of high pressures which generate anti-cyclones. One is located over the North Atlantic (the Azores) while another is located over the South Atlantic (St. Helena). Two others are located in Continental Africa – one in the North (over the Sahara) and another in thc South (over the Kalahari). Thus a large chunk of Africa is exposed predominantly to the sea-based (and moisture laden) south-west winds and at other times to the land based (dry) north-east winds. Thus, the seasons in Africa divide broadly into the wet and dry seasons whose length may vary in different geographical areas. These two wind systems meet in a broad front over Continental Africa, the extent of this front may vary from year to year or even over periods of years. This defines what the geographers call the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). The position of the Inter-tropical Zone defines the extent of the areas exposed to the moisture laden south-west winds and the length of the wet and dry seasons. Seasonal climatic patterns over much of Africa is thus determined by the amount of rain with latent consequences for life in the various regions.

The climatic zones of Africa are characterized then by a symmetrical arrangement around the equator ranging from the equatorial zones of heavy rains (above 2,000mm) on either side of the equator through the moist tropical forests on either side, the Savanah (deciduous) forests, the Savanah grasslands, through the Sahel to the deserts of the North (the Sahara) and the South (the Kalahari). A consequence of this again is the fact that the forests and grasslands, as do the river basins, once more unite West Central and East Africa.

What is today Igboland would seem, however, to have been always, through prehistory. squarely in the tropical forest zone: the evidence suggests more northern extensions to the tropical forest, in earlier times. We should note, nevertheless, that despite the co-extension of the grasslands and forests through West, Central and East Africa the area which is now Igboland falls fully, in the main within a geographical area of potential isolation in the forest zone. The potential isolation is suggested by the physical features of the quadrant demarcated by the Adamawa Highlands and the Cameroon Mountains in the east, by the Atlantic Ocean and the Niger Delta in the south, by the flood plains of the Niger Valley in the west and by the Benue Valley and trough in the north. It was within this compartment that the ancestors of Nd’Igbo lived, and moved and had their being.

The biological features of an environment may also determine its potential for human occupation and cultural development. In this regard, parasitic disease complexes are of particular interest in tropical Africa since they may render an otherwise suitable environment uninhabitable. The parasitic organisms which cause trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), malaria, onchocerciasis (river blindness), hookworm disease and even the arbo-viruses such as yellow fever are relevant. Epidemics due to any of these organisms may have stopped man in his tracks in his past evolution or migration. However, the particular environment of Nd’Igbo, due to certain quirks of ecology may have been a conducive “ecological island" for man’s early occupation.

Although the trypanosomes, for example, have rendered vast tracts of the savannah grasslands unsuitable for occupation by man or his domestic animals even in our modern times, the data of Lambrecht makes it clear that the forest zone of Guinea West Africa where Nd’Igbo are to be found is just beyond the focal points for these scourges despite the presence of the vector tse tse fly in the forest zone. It is also known from work in Asia that forest zones are reasonably insulated from malarial outbreaks as compared with the grassland plains as a result of differences in the ecology of the mosquito vectors. In the forest, mosquitoes which live among the high trees predominate thus excluding the vectors of malaria from the habitat of ground-dwelling man. Thus, man in the particular environment of Nd'Igbo may have been in prehistory saved from the worst effects of potential diseases by the relative ecological isolation of our secluded environment as these two examples serve to illustrate. The argument can indeed be extended for river-blindness, yellow fever and even the agriculturist’s pest, locusts. Thus, to geographical isolation of the environment of Nd’Igbo may also be added potential biological isolation.

One final point before we leave the question of the environment of Africa and of Igboland and of their conditioning influences. Wetness and dryness defined in the past the extent of the forests and grasslands. Variations in these conditions were often translated into variations in the extent of forests or of grasslands over Africa, and consequently in the habitat and cultural environment of man. The latter has varied in the past history of Africa. Such variations may have provided the impetus for migrations. For a full understanding of our prehistory, then, we should relate the chronology of these periods of wetness and dryness in Africa to the physical conditions of the environment and hence to the major developments as well as the movement of peoples in our cultural evolution. The congruence of physical conditions of the environment and the reconstructed pattern of cultural development should if fitted into a time sequence agree, and thus confirm (or deny) our deductions.

In the cultural evolution of man the period from about 100,000 years ago to now is particularly important as we will see. The climatic conditions over Africa in. the last 20,000-30,000 year6 ago are fairly well documented. The period from about 30.000 B.P. (i.e. before present time – equivalent to 28,000 B.C.) to about 20,000 B.P. (18,000 B.C.) was over much of Africa a humid phase. It was a period when temperatures were generally 5º lower than at present. This wet phase gave way to a drier period which lasted to about 10,000 B.P. (8,000 B.C.). Extreme aridity would seem particularly evident between 16,000 and 14,000 B.P. After 10,000 B.P. temperatures were again generally higher than at present: the period between 5,000 B.P. and 4,000 B.P. (i.e. 3.000 B.C. to 2,000 B.C.) was particularly notable being generally 2º hotter than at present. This situation brought general dessication especially in the Sahara. We can be sure that with these cycles of humidity and aridity went cycles of extension and retrogression in the limits of the tropical forests and grasslands of Africa. This situation must have had significant implications for the migration of peoples and the cultural development of man in both habitats.

Africa is now acknowledged as the cradle of mankind. The origin and development of man in prehistory must be looked for in this continent. However the position of man among living animals would seem a good point from which to start our enquiry of the origin and evolution of man generally and of the Igbo man in particular.

To the zoologist, man is a primate, a group of animals which increased in numbers about thirty million years ago, soon after their appearance in the fossil record. They were unique in a number of features. Their brains showed pronounced and precocious development, their vision was particularly improved and showed three-dimensional perception, claws were replaced by nails while their thumb became opposable to the other fingers. Of these four new characters, the two most signi6cant from the point of view of human evolution was the enlarged brain and the opposable thumb. While the bigger brain guaranteed greater control over bodily functions the opposable thumb guaranteed a greater ability to manipulate things with the hands. Each of these two new competencies of these primates reinforced each other and when these were later associated with the bipedal gait – the ability to walk on two legs – the arms were freed for other activities as in the later simians or monkey-like animals. The arms and hands became available, therefore, for use as tools for even more precise and intricate manipulations. Thus were sown the seeds of cultural evolution.

The simians, for zoological purposes fall into two main groups – the New World monkeys and the Old World monkeys. It is among the latter that the search for man's ancestors must be conducted. Of the several families of primates which the zoologist recognizes as belonging to the bigger group of Old World monkeys, the Pongidae, the family of the true apes and the Hominidae, the family of man or of ape-man, depending upon one’s point of view and emphasis, are of particular interest. This arises from the fact that existing forms among them can be expected to provide the basis for meaningful deductions on morphology or behaviour or other biological features of the ancestors of man. Such deductions should shed new light on the origins and development of man in the past. It is perhaps, necessary to indicate at this point that the north-east corner of Africa, at a place called Fayum, sixty miles south of Cairo, has shown up a rich harvest of the remains of long dead animals which include the ancestors of the true apes and of man. These remains have been dated to thirty to forty million years ago. These rather smallish primates foreshadow all the primates of today. This could be regarded as an indication that as far back as forty million years ago the guidelines for the unfolding human evolution of subsequent epochs had been laid by nature in Africa, especially as no comparable collection exists any-where else.

In the family of man, or the Hominidae clearly identifiable forms had been found in Kenya, Uganda and what is now mainland Tanzania as well as in such distant. and scattered areas of the world as India, China and Turkey. These later finds fall into the age range of ten to twenty. million years ago. The most important changes in these later forms are in the form of the jaws and teeth, in the shape of the face as well as in the first clear indications of bipedalism or the upright posture. The interesting point here is that the experts suggest that these features point to two things: a change in the nature of the food and an indication that otherwise forest dwelling animals now undertook occasional forays into the open spaces of the forest and around water bodies, all in search of food.

As these finds of fossil skeletons have often been found in conjunction with shaped stones, the suggestion has been made that the sharp cutting edges on some of these stones indicate deliberate use. These small African primates used these stones consciously to prepare their food thus foreshadowing the use of experience and expertise, necessary requisites in cultural evolution. Since some of the oldest finds of these forms are in the East African locations, this evidence is taken to indicate that these forms were differentiated in East Africa and later radiated throughout much of the Old World.

It is however, in the period one to ten million years ago that the unequivocal story of man begins in East Africa. In an area which stretches from Ethiopia (the Omo Valley) through Kenya (Lothagam) to Tanzania (Olduvai), many fossil hominids or man-like animals have been found spanning a period of nine to one million years ago. These fall into two main recognizable forms – the Australopithecus-type and the Homo-type. The australopithecines antedate the homo-forms. Four different forms belonging to these two groups stand out particularly for our purposes. These are Australopithecus robustus, Australopithecus gracilis, Homo habilis and Homo erectus.

Australopithecus robustus or forms assigned to this species have been found in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, in formations varying from 2.5 to 1.1 million years ago. Its brain size of 530 cc represents an advance on the apes. With Australopithecus gracilis we come across a smaller animal of brain size of 428 to 485 cc but which shows indications that it was a permanent biped – i.e. walked on two legs – and in this shows an advance over its robust cousin. Australopithecus gracilis or what can pass for it has been found in South Africa as well as in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania. Homo habilis with a brain capacity of 680 cc was found in the East African locations also. Certain characters in its teeth, jaw and brain indicate a closer affinity to man than to its australopithecine relations. Indeed the suggestion has been made that certain man-like forms found in Java and China belong to this species. If this is so, it would indicate migration and radiation of this species from its African habitat. Finally, Homo erectus which has been found in formations dating from 2.5 to 0.5 million years in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania represents the closest in characteristics to the modern forms of man, Homo sapiens. Its brain size varies between 750 to 1000 cc. If the suggestion which has been made, namely, that a brain size of 800 cc is the threshold between man and the apes is accepted, then Homo erectus is to all intents the earliest primitive man. This point is further supported by the observation that this form used stone implements and some archaeologists have suggested that the characteristic Acheulian industry typified by specially shaped hand-axes owe their origin to this early man. However, the hominid remains which has been unequivocally identified as Homo sapiens was found in Zambia in 1921, and a date of about 35,000 years has been given to it. Other finds of Homo sapiens in Kenya indicate that the emergence of Homo sapiens in East Africa would be a little more than l00,000 years ago but perhaps close to 200,000 years. What needs to be emphasized is that the periods when these various forms or morphospecies of man existed on the East African plains certainly overlapped. Homo erectus and Homo sapiens may have lived side by side in the same environment but each specialized in its way of life. It is from this location that these forms radiated to other parts of Africa as well as to Asia and Europe, Indeed, the rich finds in the Sahara of early man attest to the success of these forms and to the great expanse of territory which they occupied. It is from this basic stock that through hybridization modern man must have arisen. Indeed, the suggestion has been made that the negro was already differentiated 120,000 years ago as a recognizable category in Africa and fire was already being used by man 60,000 years ago in this continent. Thus, Prometheus of Greek mythology may well have been a negro!

With the extension of the evolutionary potentialities of early man through behaviour, communication became possible. So to genetic differentiation was added linguistic differentiation. The geneticist Sforza-Cavalli has demonstrated that the time-scale for genetic mechanisms becoming reflected in demonstrable evolutionary change may be exceedingly long. This suggests itself as the reason why genetically determined differences among the various peoples of Africa are not often as clearly definable as might otherwise be expected in the light of the evolutionary story. Had the time-scale been shorter, perhaps it would have been possible to trace the migrations of various populations of man in Africa by plotting the frequencies of characteristic but heritable traits among them. On the other hand, Homo sapiens has over its recent history demonstrated its facility to extend the limits for evolution not only through morphological or physiological traits but also through behaviour. Of the latter, the evolution of language opened up unfathomable possibilities for cultural evolution. This suggests that despite the limitations of biology in tracing the details of man's recent history over the last 35,000 years the cultural domain may supply the missing link.

What must stand out from our consideration of the stages of human evolution in Africa thus far is the fact that many morphnspecies co-existed over relatively long periods of time. These morphospecies, thanks to the favourable topography of Africa, the symmetrical bestriding of the equator by the forests and savannah grasslands from west to central Africa as well as the co-extension of the water bodies of West, Central and East Africa, would have ranged freely indeed over much of the central regions of Africa. Against this background, it is not perhaps as surprising as it would appear at first that hominid remains, contemporaneous with the later finds in the East African cradle, should also be found in Chad and in Morocco – very far indeed from their original domains. It also suggests that even as early as that period the forest zone of the Guinea Coast (including Igboland) which adjoins the Central African forest zone through Cameroon was already peopled.

It is not, however, possible to demonstrate the gradual transformation of any particular one of these morphospecies into Homo sapiens, the modern form of man with any certainty. This would appear surprising unless we accept that there is a gap in the data at our disposal which could also be true. But recent reinterpretations of evolutionary mechanisms can come to our rescue. The new evolutionary hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium in evolutionary processes enunciated by Gould and others suggests that such gradual transformations of one species into another is the exception rather than the rule. According to this view, evolutionary changes occur in bursts of creative change over relatively short periods of time to be followed by long periods of consolidation of the evolutionary changes rather than of continued but gradual change. Thus, the co-existence of Australopithecus robustus and Australopithecus gracilis and later of these with Homo habilis and Homo erectus (and these later two with each other) as was observed earlier would accord with this hypothesis. It is possible then to see the emergence of Homo sapiens as a sudden but also a recent phenomenon. Homo sapiens, thus co-existed with remnants of its homiai6 cousins. Being in the same contiguous environment, it may also have interacted and even co-operated with them. Such mutual interaction and co-operation would have set the stage for cultural transmission and thus laid a 6rm foundation for the conservation and consolidation of cultural gains by these species especially in the realm of behaviour and communication. The human heritage may well be seen also as the hominid heritage. The conservation of experience and expertise and its innovative association with communication would naturally lead to the emergence of language. It is in this realm, perhaps, that we should follow the unfolding story of man in Africa.

Language is, perhaps, the most important vehicle of cultural evolution in the human family. Moreover, it has come to be accepted in recent times that cultural evolution follows principles which are in many ways similar to the operative principles of biological evolution. This is why the sociobiologists have been tempted to talk of culturegens, a hypothetical cultural analogue of the gene of the biologists. In cultural, as in biological evolution, then, isolation should be a potent force in the initiation and maintenance of distinct species or cultural groups or language units.

On language differentiation Werner has underlined the manner in which differences may have arisen. He suggests, for a beginning, that we assume that “a linguistically homogenous community splits into two groups, through a process such as migration or invasion that creates a geographical separation between them”. And he continues, “as long as neither group completely gives up its own language to adopt the language of some other people, there will now be two separate generation-to-generation continua. Linguistic changes will take place within each continuum but many or all of the changes will be different for the two...after several centuries enough diverse changes will have accumulated so that members of the two group will no longer be able to communicate with each other". The radiation of man through Central Africa in the last 30,000 years and particularly in the last 10,000 years, the latter a period of increasing aridity, was followed by a parallel linguistic differentiation. It would seem logical to expect so.

Greenberg’s classification of the languages of Africa is now generally accepted by students of linguistics – the study of the structure of languages. Of particular interest to us is the group of languages which he calls the Niger-Congo languages, members of which are to be found from the southern regions of West Africa through Central Africa to parts of Eastern and Southern Africa. The relationship between these languages would seem to have co-related with the relationships between different human populations during the migrations in prehistory which led to the occupation of Central and West Africa, both in the forest and grasslands regions. Although Greenberg recognizes five main sub-families in the Niger-Congo, only two of these should be of interest to Nd'Igbo on the basis of their possible relationship to the Igbo language. These are the so-called Kwa sub-family of languages and the Benue Congo sub-family.

Not only do the greater majority of Nigerian languages belong to these two groups but the languages of the neighbours of Nd'Igbo, all without exception fall into these two groups. Igbo is classified with Yoruba, Edo, Igala and ljo in the Kwa sub-family while Tiv, Bantu (to which Bamileke and Ekoi belong), Efik-lbibio, Jukun and the Plateau languages belong to the Benue-Congo sub-family. It is to be noted that among experts in linguistics there is intense controversy as to the inclusion of particular languages in the Kwa or the Benue-Congo sub-family and vice-versa. For example, Werner has pointed out that the relationship between the Cross-River branch of the Benue-Congo and some languages of the Kwa sub-family, particularly Igbo, may be closer than present schemes of classification allow. What is clear is that the differences between certain Nigerian languages in either group is minimal: Igbo may be closer in some respects to some languages of the Cross-River complex than to others in the same Kwa sub-family. Indeed, Armstrong has suggested that Igbo diverged from Yoruba about 4,000 to 6,000 years ago (4,000-2,000 B.C.) while Yoruba and Edo may have differentiated from each other 3,200 to 4,600 years ago. There is however, a paradox: while the emerging pattern of linguistic differentiation suggests that Igbo may have belonged to an early period of language differentiation in the Central African region between Chad and the Congo Basin, it has an acceptable though limited relationship to the Bantu whose differentiation and radiation is regarded as a later phenomenon.

It is clear then that the linguistic differentiation of peoples in the central area of Africa must have been in step with the cultural evolution of these peoples. Thus, not only would these have evolved in parallel in contiguous areas but the early migrations which initiated the linguistic differentiation would have taken place about the same time. Moreover, the forests of the central region would in themselves constitute isolating barriers encouraging localization of contact between continuous groups in the Central African region. In this regard, it 'is of interest to remember that negroid skeleton with what passes for traces of skin have been found in Acacus dated to 9000 B.C, while in the Bouar region of the Central African Republic – in the watershed of the Congo and Chad Basins cultural remains, megaliths for example, have been found whose date of 7,440 B.P. (i.e. 5,490 B.C.) to 6,700 B.P. (4,750 B.C.) is revealing. The tropical forests would seem to have been as thickly populated at these times as other areas including the Sahara. It is conceivable that groups of people may have moved westwards from these locations. It is also logical given the onset of aridity in the Sahara, in this period, which was also peopled, that other groups will be moving southwards – all in the general direction of Southern Nigeria.

In this regard, it is instructive to reflect on the postulates of various authorities on the nodal centres for these migrations in the light of linguistic analysis. Roland Oliver has suggested a Pre-Bantu language in the Chad Region whose differentiation may have given rise to a Proto-Bantu language, as well as other languages. The Proto-Bantu language in its place underwent further differentiation in the Central African region. Does it sound so far fetched to suggest that the Kwa group of languages may in fact have differentiated with the ancestral pre-Bantu? Could it be regarded as completely illogical to expect the later Benue-Congo sub-family to have differentiated with Proto-Bantu.

On the other hand, Guthrie, based on extensive linguistic analysis, has argued that the original Bantu point of origin should be in the area of Southern Shaba in Zaire. But Greenberg on the argument that the most closely related languages of the Bantu type are found in the Benue Valley in Nigeria has argued for the Proto-Bantu point of origin as that general locality.

It seems clear that the primary linguistic and cultural differentiation of the negroid peoples especially those with Bantoid antecedents like ourselves which left its imprint on the modern ethnographic situation in Africa must have taken place within the triangular area delimited by the Eastern Chad Basin, the Eastern Benue Valley and the headwaters of the Congo Basin. The possibility exists with a fair degree of certainty on biological, archaeological and linguistic evidence that it is from within this triangle that many of Nigeria’s peoples including Nd’Igbo may have started their migration to their present locations.

Further, in biological evolution, a primary centre of origin of a group of related species is usually indicated by a wider diversity of species types in that primary location. It has been suggested that an analogous situation exists with regard to linguistic evolution. Against this background, it is instructive to observe that within Nigeria two secondary points of language diversity exists close to the primary Chad-Benue-Congo triangle. The first is the Plateau area of Nigeria, the cradle of the Nok culture where up to forty-five recognizable language groupings exist. The second is found in the south-east of the Eastern Benue Valley. In the Ogoja forests highlands as well as in the adjoining areas of the Cameroons, which fall within this area villages exist less than ten miles distant which cannot communicate linguistically. It seems attractive to speculate that these two secondary centres of language differentiation may well be related in prehistory to the Kwa and Benue-Congo (especially Cross River) centres. On the basis of language, then, two derivative influences are indicated for Nd’Igbo: a northerly derived in8uence (Kwa?) and an eastern influence (Bantu especially Cross River). The two directions would indicate respectively grassland related ecological influences as well as forest related influences on the cultural development of Nd'Igbo.

The question which arises at this point is whether on the basis of the ecological, archeological and linguistic evidence so far put forward, it is now possible to speculate on the geography of the origin of Nd'Igbo as well as on the nature or specific characteristics of Igbo culture and civilization. Unless, our speculations can acquire time-depth which can be related to the main movements of human evolution and cultural diversification in Africa these central questions may remain enigmatic, It is true that my predecessor in this onerous assignment, Professor Afigbo, last year, on this forum, as well as in some others of his writings has, in a closely argued case, suggested that Igbo civilization was essentially an agriculturally based culture. He has also suggested the Benue confluence as the possible point of origin. What is clear however, is that the ecological setting, particularly in the rain forest region and the interphase area between the forest and the savannah (open) forests and grasslands may have constituted the primary determinants of the nature and specific character of an emergent Igbo culture and civilization in prehistory.

For a full appreciation of the relevant framework for our discussions two preliminary but important issues must be tackled. These relate to the wider question of the circumstances and point of origin of agriculture in the world and secondly to the acceptable sequence in man's cultural development and the implications of this for the reconstruction of African and indeed of world culture history. In most accounts of the main watersheds of man's cultural history as put forward by western scholars, the earliest cultural manifestation is supposed to be the hunter-gatherer culture which is then followed by the development of agriculturally-based (i.e. cereal) culture, followed by a pastoralist culture and finally thc evolution of urbanization. The implicit though ecologically induced bias of this sequence is often ignored. In an agriculture developed in a grassland ecosystem with limited water-resources and short but clearly defined seasons such a cultural sequence makes sense. This is so because in a specialized ecosystem which this represents, given the limited water and the short season, only a limited variety of plants especially grasses tolerant of these specialized conditions can be developed and consequently domesticated for limited periods of the year. The tendency towards monocultural practices i.e. intense exploitation of the limited variety of plants available is a logical consequence. Given fairly long periods when the environment is unsuitable for agricultural pursuits based on the exploitation of plants, it is natural to expect man to fill in the slack periods of the year with other activities such as hunting and from this, planned domestication and husbandry of animals – the beginning of pastoralism.

For historical reasons, this is the pattern of agriculture and cultural development which may have diffused into Europe from the Fertile Crescent of the Tigris-Euphrates (present-day Iraq and Iran) in the Near East. This type of agriculture would be consistent ecologically with the relatively undiversified ecosystem of the temperate regions. Thus, this pattern would take root in such regions (both in Europe and Asia) but given a different ecological setting in the tropical regions, an alternative sequence becomes a distinct possibility. Howbeit, given the eurocentric bias of world history in our era, it is not surprising that this partial picture has become universalized by the Bronowskis and Desmond Clarks as the standard reference pathway of human cultural development. But on the basis of ecological logic, a modified sequence is possible at least for the tropical forest regions.

In the forest regions, there is an abundance of a variety of fruits, vegetables, seeds, tubers and roots which can be profitably exploited by man in the hunter-gatherer phase as Professor Okigbo so competently demonstrated on this forum two years ago. The kind of agriculture which can be developed in this setting has been variously called vegeculture and more recently called horticulture by Porteres and Barrau. This depends on the selected improvement of favourable conditions around food-yielding species in the forest clearings and margins near human settlements. In time the conscious propagation of such species would lead to the development of agriculture but of a decidedly different character from cereal agriculture. Since favourable conditions exist virtually throughout the year and many of the plant species supply ample proteins for the diet of the human populations of the forest zones, the pressure for animal domestication and thus pastoralism is virtually non-existent. An additional protein source would have been provided though by fishing. A different kind of agriculture is the result. This would have been the dominant system of agriculture in the forest zone of Africa and given the diversity of plant species, it is natural that a polycultural agriculture such as is evident in the southern regions of West Africa through the Cameroons to the Zairese regions of Central Africa would develop as the preferred system. Moreover, given the isolationist tendency of the tropical forest and the ecological localization of the forest region, the diffusive potential of this type of agriculture would be rather limited. This accounts for the facility with which it can be ignored.

The cultural consequences of this type of agriculture are most interesting and far reaching. It has been suggested by the protagonists of the rubbish-heap hypothesis of the origin of agriculture that early man may have thrown away unused food items – seeds, tubers, vegetative portions of plants etc. and the sprouting of these near human habitations may have provided man the opportunity for closer examination and selection of suitable domesticates. In this scenario, we often lose sight of two related but important biological processes associated with rubbish heaps. In rubbish heaps, not only do vegetative portions of plants and seeds sprout but other vegetable remains are likely to rot thus bringing early to man’s attention the important biological process of fermentation. Given further the fact that fermentation is often accompanied by a rise in temperature, which in favourable circumstances may even give rise to visible traces of water moisture into the atmosphere, the association between softening of plant remains and a rise in temperature – e.g. through boiling – would have been made. This association would have been reinforced by the accidental burning of tubers and roots. The experience would also have been reinforced further by man's contact with the charac