April 9, 2025
I was delighted to be invited to give a seminar as part of the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology “Human Palaeo-systems Research Group” series. In case you missed it the seminar is will soon be available to watch online (click here).
To see the full list of seminars in the series click here.
December 18, 2024
This week I will give a lecture on the University of Amsterdam, Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, BSc Big History course. This course sets out with the large ambition of covering “How the histories of the cosmos, life, Earth and human societies influence each other and shape important aspects of the world together?” The small component of this that I am involved in relates to the understanding of past environmental change and how humans have shaped the landscapes we see around us today.
Related to the topic of past environmental change Prof. Henry Hooghiemstra (University of Amsterdam), and the Big History team, have produced a short video “How are civilizations influenced by climate change?”. In this video a introduction to how we can obtain information on past environmental change from the sedimentary record is given, and examples of changing landscapes and cultures in the Netherlands and Mexico are discussed.
You can find more Big History content in the University of Amsterdam Big History MOOC (Massive Online Open Content) by clicking here.
October 19, 2024
INQUA fellow Alfred Hougnon continues his research into past environmental change in the Dahomey Gap (Benin). In the fourth video documenting his progress a short background to the project, and insights into field work, are given. Field work took place near the Ewe-Adakplame forest in the south east of Benin and involved the recovery of sediments using a Russian corer. The video also shows how interactions and engagement with the local community was developed during the research expedition.
To find out more above Alfreds project read posts on:
To watch more videos about past environmental change visit the Ecology of the Past YouTube channel.
August 19, 2024
I am delighted to be able to report that the “Palaeoecology Reference Collection” housed at the Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics (University of Amsterdam) is now listed as part of the national ecological research infrastructure of the Netherlands. It is great to get recognition for this important collection. Elements of the collection are available digitally and we continue to work to find resources to improve our physical and digital collections. To find out more about the ecological resources in the Netherlands visit the “Ecological research infrastructures in the Netherlands” or the specific “Palaeoecology Reference Collection” web pages.
August 14, 2024
During the Mapping Ancient Africa writing workshop in Kenya (3-6 June 2024) Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr conducted a series of short interviews with the scientists attending. In this, final, instalment of the interviews the thoughts of the instructors on the course are presented. Watch all the Mapping Ancient Africa videos on the Mapping Ancient Africa YouTube Playlist.
August 13, 2024
During the Mapping Ancient Africa writing workshop in Kenya (3-6 June 2024) Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr conducted a series of short interviews with the scientists attending. Below you can find part 2 (of 2) of the interviews with the participants in the workshop. Watch the videos to find out their scientific stories and top tips for academic writing. Watch all the Mapping Ancient Africa videos on the Mapping Ancient Africa YouTube Playlist.
August 12, 2024
During the Mapping Ancient Africa writing workshop in Kenya (3-6 June 2024) Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr conducted a series of short interviews with the scientists attending. During the interviews she asked the participants and instructors to describe their scientific background, what had motivated them to take part in the writing workshop, and what they thought the most important thing they had gained from it. You can now meet the first four of these scientists now by watching the videos below, or catch up with all the latest videos on the Mapping Ancient Africa YouTube Playlist.
July 26, 2024
On the 25 July 2024 the 19th Mapping Ancient Africa (MAA) seminar, entitled Climate frameworks for the Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age in Northwest Africa, was delivered by Solène Boisard (University Montreal). In the seminar Solène presented two lines of evidence for past climate change in north-western Africa over the last c. 70,000 years. One from mechanistic climate models (via the PastClim package, for more details see: Leonardi et al. 2023) and one from reconstructions based on archaeological evidence. She found good agreement between the two approaches and linked climatic changes to the transition from Middle Stone Age to Late Stone Age technologies.
Details of this seminar can be found here. You can find more Mapping Ancient Africa seminar videos on the “Ecology of the Past” YouTube channel.
July 15, 2024
During the Mapping Ancient Africa (MAA) workshop in Kenya (3-6 June 2024) the session delivered by Rahab Kinyanjui (National Museums of Kenya) was recorded for those that could not make it. The seminar was focused on how to deal with reviewer comments. While this was targeted for participants focused on developing their manuscripts for the MAA special issue of Quaternary International (for full details click here). This seminar is relevant to all those facing reviewer comments on their scientific manuscripts.
For further information on developing scientific manuscripts you might also be interested to check out our video on how to structure a scientific article (click here). For other MAA online content visit our YouTube channel for seminars, project updates, and to meet our scientists.
July 12, 2024
On the 20 June 2024 the 18th Mapping Ancient Africa (MAA) seminar was delivered by Kumar Akhilesh (Sharma Centre for Heritage Education). This seminar was a little different to most MAA seminars in that it focused on another INQUA project, rather than a specific research line. In the talk Kumar outlined the INQUA funded “PalaeoHome” project and highlighted work on hominin evolution in the Indian sub-continent.
Details of this seminar can be found here. You can find more Mapping Ancient Africa seminar videos on the “Ecology of the Past” YouTube channel.
Ecology of the past 