- Location: Fountainhill Estate, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
- Dates: 3 – 6 March 2026
- Lead organizers: Jemma Finch and Trevor Hill (both University of KwaZulu-Natal)
The third Mapping Ancient Africa (MAA) workshop took place in South Africa during March 2026. This workshop was supported by the International Union for Quaternary Research as part of the MAA multi-year project. The aim of this work shop was to provide specialist training in developing research projects and writing of scientific articles. During the workshop each participant developed, and progressed, their own personal work plan. These personal programs allowed the training to be tailored to the participants needs. They included a wide range of challenged ranging from the development of project ideas through to dealing with reviewer comments on manuscripts, and inclusivity, equality and diversity issues.
In addition to the academic program, social activities and excursions were designed to help build academic networks and promote informal discussion of past environmental change issues. These included hikes to the Holley Shelter archaeological site (Bader & Conrad, 2023) and Game Pass shelter rock art site (Hoerle, 2005).
MAA South Africa workshop participants
| Name | Affiliation | Country |
| Cyril Boateng | Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology | Ghana |
| Arlia Dhevnanan | University of KwaZulu-Natal | South Africa |
| Temesgen Dingamo | Arba Minch University | Ethiopia |
| Angela Effiom | University of the Witwatersrand | South Africa |
| Bouwe Groeneveld | University of Amsterdam | The Netherlands |
| Zahra Omarjee | University of KwaZulu-Natal | South Africa |
| Joshua van Schalkwyk | University of KwaZulu-Natal | South Africa |
MAA South Africa workshop facilitators
| Name | Affiliation | Country |
| Jemma Finch | University of KwaZulu-Natal | South Africa |
| William Gosling | University of Amsterdam | The Netherlands |
| Trevor Hill | University of KwaZulu-Natal | South Africa |
| Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr | Free University of Berlin | Germany |
| Rahab Kinyanjui | National Museums of Kenya / Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology | Kenya / Germany |
To find out more about Mapping Ancient Africa project click here.
References
- Bader, G. D., & Conard, N. J. (2023). Holley Shelter, South Africa. In A. Beyin, D. K. Wright, J. Wilkins, & D. I. Olszewski (Eds.), Handbook of Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa (pp. 1511–1519). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20290-2_97
- Hoerle, S. (2005). A preliminary study of the weathering activity at the rock art site of Game Pass Shelter (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) in relation to its conservation. South African Journal of Geology, 108(2), 297–308. https://doi.org/10.2113/108.2.297
Ecology of the past 