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Ancient Charcoal Reveals 2,000 Years of Environmental and Human History in Southwest Nigeria
New archaeological research uses nearly 3,000 pieces of charcoal to uncover how people at Old Bara lived with—and shaped—their environment from about 400 BC to the nineteenth century.
EVANSTON, Ill. — Tiny pieces of charcoal buried in the ground for centuries are opening a new window into the environmental history of southwest Nigeria.
A new study by archaeologists Alemseged Beldados Aleho, Akinwumi Ogundiran, and Macham Mangut examines nearly 3,000 pieces of ancient charcoal recovered from archaeological sites at Old Bara in southwest Nigeria. Their findings provide evidence of the kinds of trees and vegetation that surrounded communities in the region and the wood that people selected for fuel over more than 2,000 years.
The research, published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, establishes the first comprehensive archaeological charcoal database for southern Nigeria. It covers a remarkable span of history, from about 400 BC, during the Early Iron Age, through the era of the Oyo Empire, which lasted into the early nineteenth century.
Reading History in Charcoal
Charcoal may look like the remains of a fire, but to archaeologists it can preserve an extraordinary amount of information.
When wood burns, some of its microscopic cellular structure survives. Scientists can examine these structures under a microscope and compare them with known tree species. This field of research, called anthracology, allows archaeologists to identify the kinds of wood people burned hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
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The researchers studied 2,972 charcoal fragments weighing about 4.5 kilograms. The samples came from different archaeological settings at Old Bara, an area in present-day Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State. Old Bara was home to one of the oldest Iron Age sites in Nigeria and later became part of the metropolis of the Oyo Empire. Several kings of the empire are believed to have been buried there. The charcoal samples were excavated from residences, refuse deposits, pottery kilns, and ceremonial areas. By examining the microscopic structure of the charcoal, the team identified trees associated with dry savanna, woodland savanna, and moist forest environments.
These traces of ancient fires therefore provide clues to two closely connected histories: how the environment changed and how people made use of it.
People Were Part of the Environmental Story
The study moves beyond treating past environments simply as natural settings in which human history took place. The charcoal remains show that people interacted continuously with the plant communities around them.
Families needed firewood for cooking, heating, craft production, and other everyday activities. Gathering that wood required people to know their surroundings: which trees were available, where they grew, which ones burned well, and which were suitable for particular purposes.
Over generations, these everyday choices connected households to larger environmental processes.
By studying charcoal from archaeological deposits of different ages and settings, researchers can begin to reconstruct changes in vegetation, patterns of human wood use, and the ways class and political authority constrained or enabled access to different tree species for firewood. The results from Bara show the presence of plants associated with several ecological zones, from relatively dry savanna to wetter forest environments.
The research therefore offers a long-term record for investigating the changing relationship between people, vegetation, and climate in a part of Africa where such detailed archaeological environmental records remain limited.
A History More Than 2,000 Years Long
Bara is especially important because its archaeological record spans major periods of West African history.
The earliest materials examined in the study date to around 400 BC. The sequence continues through later periods of settlement and eventually reaches the age of the Oyo Empire, one of the most powerful states in West African history.
This long timeline makes it possible to ask questions that cannot easily be answered from written records alone. What kinds of landscapes did people inhabit? What trees were available to them? Which woods did they bring into their homes and other activity areas? And how did these relationships change as settlements, populations, and political systems developed?
Charcoal offers an unexpected archive for answering those questions.
Expanding the Environmental History of West Africa
The study also contributes to a broader effort to understand Africa's environmental past through archaeological evidence.
Much of what is known about long-term environmental change comes from sources such as pollen, lake sediments, and climate records. Archaeological charcoal provides something different. Because it often represents wood that people deliberately collected and burned, it can reveal both the vegetation that existed and the decisions people made about natural resources.
This publication creates an important foundation for future studies. Its charcoal database can help archaeologists compare sites across southern Nigeria and investigate how vegetation, climate, settlement, and human land use changed through time.
At a moment when communities around the world are confronting rapid environmental change, such long-term perspectives matter. They remind us that relationships between people and environments have histories—and that understanding those histories can broaden how we think about environmental change today.
About the Study
The article, “Anthracological study of charcoal samples from the sites of Bara, southwest Nigeria and implications for past environment and firewood history,” is authored by Alemseged Beldados Aleho, Akinwumi Ogundiran, and Macham Mangut and published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology in 2026.
The study analyzed 2,972 archaeological charcoal fragments from Bara, southwest Nigeria, representing contexts dating from approximately 400 BC through AD 1835.
The article is open access and available through Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology.
Media Contacts: Alemseged Aleho (alehoa@uncw.edu) and Akinwumi Ogundiran (ogundiran@northwestern.edu)