Bioarchaeology of Health and Disease in Pre-colonial Nigerian Populations: A Comparative Regional Study

The reconstruction of health, disease, and physiological stress in pre-colonial Nigerian populations through systematic bioarchaeological analysis offers a critical window into living conditions, nutritional status, subsistence economy, and the social distribution of biological welfare across different cultural contexts and ecological zones. This dissertation presents a comparative bioarchaeological study of health and disease indicators in pre-colonial skeletal populations from five ecologically distinct regions of Nigeria, spanning the Lake Chad Basin, the Middle Benue Valley, the Jos Plateau, the Yoruba forest margin, and the Niger Delta coast. A standardized bioarchaeological protocol is applied to a combined sample of over four hundred individuals, assessing non-specific indicators of physiological stress including linear enamel hypoplasia, cribra orbitalia, porotic hyperostosis, Harris lines, and periosteal lesions, alongside evidence for specific pathological conditions including tuberculosis, leprosy, dental caries, and traumatic injury. Comparative analysis reveals statistically significant regional variation in stress indicator frequencies that cannot be fully explained by differential preservation, suggesting genuine biological differences in population health profiles. Forest margin populations show elevated caries frequencies consistent with high dietary carbohydrate loading from yam-dominant agricultural diets, while Sahelian zone populations show the highest frequencies of stress indicators compatible with nutritional stress during periods of climatic austerity. The dissertation develops a social epidemiology model for pre-colonial Nigeria, arguing that health inequality was structured by both ecological conditions and social differentiation, with differential access to protein-rich food sources emerging as the primary driver of biological welfare variation. Keywords: bioarchaeology, health and disease, pre-colonial populations, comparative regional study, Nigeria.