A new study has been recently published to show that Yoruba communities shared pottery technology across regional and stylistic boundaries in southwestern Nigeria between 1590 and 1725.
According to the new study, domestic pottery from Early Òṣogbo, in south-western Nigeria, reveals that a type of pottery technology spread widely among Yorùbá communities more than 300 years ago.
It added that the archaeological site, an ancient market town discovered in the Osun Grove, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Òṣogbo, show that potters working in different regional styles shared knowledge about which clays to select and how to use them.
The new study titled, “Ceramic petrography in Early Òṣogbo: craft technology, regional exchanges and social convergence,” by Bongumenzi Nxumalo of the University of Pretoria and Akinwumi Ogundiran of Northwestern University, is published in Antiquity.
Prof Ogundiran
The researchers in studying 43 samples excavated from Early Òṣogbo, said the town stood at a crossroads linking several Yorùbá polities, including the Ọ̀yọ́ Empire, Ifẹ̀ and Iléṣà Kingdom, and other communities of the Upper Ọ̀sun region.
According to them, “Traders, travellers, political representatives, and craftspeople passed through this frontier settlement, making it an ideal place to study how objects, people, and ideas came together.”
In carrying out the study, the researchers used petrography—a method that examines paper-thin slices of pottery under a microscope—to identify the minerals in the clay and reconstructed how potters selected and prepared their raw materials for pottery production.
Across a region more than 150 kilometers wide, potters consistently favored micaceous kaolinitic clays found in river valleys and other alluvial settings. These clays were ideal for pottery because they needed little or no added temper to strengthen the clay pots and produced durable vessels that retained heat well.
Speaking about the study, Nxumalo, the lead author, who served as a postdoctoral fellow in the Material Lab at Northwestern University when the study was carried out, said “The pottery shows that people could maintain recognizable regional traditions while sharing technological knowledge across those boundaries.”
Ogundiran, who is the corresponding author and project leader, and has led excavations at Early Òṣogbo and Osun Grove since 2004, added that “Our paper also has wider implications for the ways we imagine Yorùbá identity during the seventeenth century. Yorùbá identity was neither monolithic and unchanging, nor was it a collection of sealed cultural boxes. People certainly identified with particular towns, kingdoms and pottery traditions while also participating in wider networks of shared skills, tastes and exchange. Our study shows Yorùbá identity was being made through mobility, interaction and the practical work of learning from others during the seventeenth century.”
The new study shows why stylistic patterns alone can be misleading. Vessels that looked different could be made from the same kinds of clay using shared technical knowledge, while similar-looking pottery might come from several locations. The study of mineral composition therefore records connections not always visible on a pot’s surface and foregrounds technology as an integral part of identity-making.
According to the authors, the convergence of ceramic styles and technological choices in Early Òṣogbo is “ceramic cosmopolitanism”, because potters did not have to give up local forms or regional styles to participate in a broader technological world.
The article is published open access in Antiquity. DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2026.10442
