Epistemological Foundations of African Archaeology: Decolonising Theoretical Frameworks in Nigerian Archaeological Practice

The theoretical frameworks through which Nigerian archaeology has been practised since its academic institutionalization in the mid-twentieth century were largely inherited from European and North American scholarly traditions whose epistemological assumptions reflect the intellectual culture of colonial modernity rather than the historically situated knowledge traditions of African societies. This dissertation undertakes a sustained epistemological critique of the dominant theoretical frameworks in Nigerian archaeological practice, arguing that their decolonization is not merely a political aspiration but an intellectual necessity for generating more accurate and socially accountable knowledge about the African past. The study draws on decolonial theory, African philosophy of knowledge, and the sociology of scientific knowledge to develop a framework termed grounded African archaeological epistemology, which privileges the ontological assumptions embedded in African social and cosmological traditions as productive starting points for archaeological interpretation rather than as ethnographic add-ons to an otherwise Euro-centric analytical process. Three empirical case studies from Igboland, the Benue Valley, and the Lake Chad Basin demonstrate the interpretive differences generated when cosmological frameworks of personhood, ancestry, and landscape are treated as primary hermeneutic tools rather than supplementary cultural context. The dissertation engages critically with counter-arguments from positivist and processualist traditions, arguing that interpretive plurality does not entail relativism but rather a more productive and honest relationship between archaeological knowledge claims and the evidence from which they are derived. Original theoretical contributions are developed in dialogue with the World Archaeological Congress ethics framework. Keywords: epistemology, decolonisation, African archaeology, theoretical frameworks, Nigerian archaeological practice.