Zilum is a settlement of the Gajiganna culture located in the Chad Basin of northeastern Nigeria, 72 km north of Maiduguri in Borno State and is dated to ca 600-400 BCE.

Zilum covers a settlement area of approximately 12 hectares and emerged from the Final Stone Age food-producing communities of the Gajiganna culture.

Despite this, archaeologists Ahmed Gamal-El-Din Fahmy and Carlos Magnavita were able to separate an assemblage of fossil phytoliths from the pit through the use of liquid ZnBr2 / HCl (zinc bromide / hydrogen chloride).

Morphotypical analysis of these phytoliths, when compared with paleoethnobotanical knowledge of the surrounding region, resulted in the interpretation that this pit was used to store plants of the family Poaceae.

[2] The vast majority of ceramic findings excavated from Zilum consist of small, clay figurines that depict anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures.

[4] Sites in the Walasa area of northeastern Nigeria, like Magaba and Malankari, from the late first millennium BCE begin to show changes in the artistic tradition, particularly in the size of anthropomorphic clay figurines and more diverse representations of animal figures.

[4] Archaeological and paleoethnobotanical evidence suggests that the inhabitants of Zilum relied more heavily on the cultivation of edible plants, like pearl millet and cowpeas, than on the consumption of meat.

Chemical analysis of this layer showed a notably high concentration of elementary sulphur and dimethyltrisulfid, neither of which occur naturally in clay and are thus thought to be associated with human activity.

[1] This craft-related evidence, paired with the ceramic findings discussed here later, led archaeologists to conclude that artisans inhabited Zilum and likely produced a large portion of the material culture for the larger community.

This conclusion is furthered by the high population density (1,750-2,500 people on the 12-hectare settlement) as it is unlikely that each household would possess the skill required to create their own pottery, especially in regard to large storage vessels.

According to Carlos Magnavita, it is very probable that Zilum consisted of a fortified and nucleated settlement that, assuming the contemporaneity of the neighboring sites, likely oversaw a size-based hierarchy in the mid-first millennium BCE.