Field Report: Oyo Ruins of NW Yorubaland,Nigeria

Abstract

Archaeological investigations have been conducted for more than three decades at Old Oyo, the capital of the Oyo Yoruba kingdom of the 17th – 19th centuries. Throughout this period, the emphasis has always been on this particular site, in spite of a traditional Oyo claim that Old Oyo was just one of several such seats of the kingdom and that earlier ones lay further north, nearer the Niger River. This paper helps confirm this oral tradition. Two Oyo-related sites were identified: Koso, north of Old Oyo, and Ipapo lle to its SE, which was fully surveyed by a systematic transect method based on a grid system that has been found useful at Old Oyo and Igboho. Koso could not be surveyed in this manner for lack of an adequate topographic map of the area.