The Lake Chad region of Nigeria is an extreme environment: virtually
treeless sand and a broiling clay plain in the fierce heat of the dry
season, then much of it inundated and impassable in the wet season as
whole areas turn into shallow lakes or marsh. Yet even this hostile
landscape and climate have sustained human communities in continuous
occupation for some three hundred years. Professor Connah traces the
story of human adaptation to and exploitation of this unusual
environment from prehistoric to modern times. He presents a natural
history of Man in the region, based largely on archaeological data but
drawing also on written evidence, ethnography and oral tradition to
reconstruct human history and experience in this largely unknown area.
This ecological approach therefore cuts across the conventional
boundaries between academic disciplines and the book is intended for
students of African history as well as of archaeology. It provides too
the historical context in which modern development programmes for the
region can be set and to some extent judged. The book is amply and well
illustrated.