Igboland

The Nsukka-Okigwe axis forms as a basis for a proposed Proto-Igbo cultural heartland antecedent to contemporary Igbo culture. It is unclear what cultural links there are between these pre-historic artefacts and today. Later human settlement in the region may have links with other discoveries made in the wider area particularly with the culture associated with the terracotta discoveries based at Nok spanning a wide area about north-central Nigeria.

Much of the Igbo population is believed to have migrated from a smaller area in this region, starting several independent Igbo-speaking tribes, village-groups, kingdoms and states. The movements were generally broken into two trends in migration: a more northerly spread group towards the banks of the Niger and the upper quadrant of the Cross River; the other, following a southerly trail had mostly risen from the Isu populations based nearer the axis from which the majority of southern Igbo communities were populated. Mbaise are notably the best examples of an Igbo group claiming autochthony and rejecting many migratory histories about their origins, many of these groups either way are evidently culturally northern or southern Igbo based on the proximity of their traditions to those of their neighbours and, many times, familial and political ties.

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