Heritage and Community Archaeology in South-Western Nigeria

Abstract

This chapter presents archaeological and ethnographic engagements with an NGO Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library Foundation (OOPL), and the Kenta Sowunmi community in southwestern Nigeria. The chapter highlights how collaborative efforts between different stakeholders could be deployed to promote the aims and objectives of community archaeology. OOPL engaged archaeology to protect and preserve items of cultural and natural heritage that would otherwise have been destroyed by development projects. During ethnographic studies carried out among the Kenta Sowunmi community, other sites of archaeological interest were identified for future studies. This initiative, in which all stakeholders are brought together to pursue a common goal of heritage protection and management for tourism purposes, represents a new direction of community archaeology in Nigeria.