Ecology of the past

MAPPING ANCIENT AFRICA: PAST EVENTS

Below is a complete list of Mapping Ancient Africa events since the start of the project in September 2021. This includes links to all the online seminar content. Enjoy!

Workshop in Nairobi (June 2024)

The MAA writing workshop was help 4-7 June 2024  at the Jumuia Conference and Country Home (Limuru) just outside Nairobi (Kenya). For further details click here, for a report of the event click here. The aim of the workshop was to help participants to develop manuscripts for the MAA special issue of Quaternary International. For special issue details click here.

• Rahab Kinyanjui (National Museums of Kenya / Max Plank Institute of Geoanthropology) “How to deal with reviewer comments”. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• Interviews with workshop attendees:
  • Participants (part 1): Olugbenga Boboye (University of Ibadan, Nigeria), Angela Effiom (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa), Busisiwe Hlophe (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa), Alfred Houngnon (University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin).
  • Participants (part 2): Ruth Kiely (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands), Husna Mashaka (Arizona State University, USA & National Museums of Kenya, Kenya), Sylvia Wemanya (Rice University, USA & National Museums of Kenya, Kenya).
  • Instructors: Bruk Lemma (Free University of Berlin, Germany), Rahab Kinyanjui (National Museums of Kenya, Kenya & Max Plank Institute for Geoanthropology, Germany), Trevor Hill (University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa).

Seminars 2024

• 25 July 2024 (17:00-18:00 CEST) – Solène Boisard (University Montreal) “Climate frameworks for the Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age in Northwest Africa”; chaired by William Gosling. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 20 June 2024 (17:00-18:00 CEST) – Akilesh Kumar (Director, Sharma Centre for Heritage Education (SCHE), India) “Introducing the PALEOHOME project”; chaired by Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 16 May 2024 (17:00-18:00 CEST) – N’dji dit Jacques Dembele (President of WAQUA, Université des sciences sociales et de gestion de Bamako, Mali) “Quaternary period seismicity on the West African Craton”; chaired by Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 12 April 2024 (17:00-18:00 CEST) – Stéphanie Bodin (Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt) “Hunter-gatherers and Afromontane vegetation in the Ethiopian highlands since the end of the African Humid Period”; chaired by William Gosling. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 15 March 2024 (17:00-18:00 CET) – Bruk Lemma (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany; Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute – EBI) “Nature’s Fingerprints: Exploring the Use of Biomarkers and Stable Isotopes in Unraveling Chemotaxonomy and (Paleo-)Climate Dynamics of the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia”; chaired by Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 28 February 2024 (17:00-18:00 CET) – Mathias Vinnepand (Leibniz-Institute for Applied Geophysics Hannover, Germany) “An age-depth model for Lake Bosumtwi (Ghana) to reconstruct one million years of West African climate and environmental change”; chaired by Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.

INQUA ROME CONGRESS SESSION (JULY 2023)

The MAA project had a double session at the INQUA Rome congress (13-20 July 2023). The session was entitled “Mapping Ancient Africa: Climate, Vegetation & Humans” this session was supported by the Palaeoclimate (PALCOM) and Human and Biosphere (HABCOM) commissions of INQUA. The session is being organised by the MAA team. For further details on the session click here. We had 17 talks and >20 poster presentations. Reports of the session can be found in two parts: (i) Part 1, and (ii) Part 2.

WORKSHOP IN ROME (JULY 2023)

The MAA workshop was held at the “Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome” on the 12 and 13 July 2023. During the event we will had workshops on palaeoclimate modelling (based on the Pastclim R package), and the inference of past climate from ancient pollen data (based on the CREST model). Further, we developed manuscripts for the proposed Quaternary International special issue, and set in place plans for the future of the MAA network (leadership, future meetings, and potential grant applications).

• To find out more about what went on at the workshop click here.
• To learn more about some of the scientists who participated:
  • Alfred Houngnon
  • Busisiwe Hlophe, Angela Effion, Bahru Zinaye Asenahegn, Michela Leonardi
  • Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr, Mathias Vinnepand, Rahab Kinyanjui, Manu Chevalier
  • Markus Fischer, Soléne Boisard, Trevor Hill, Jemma Finch

SEMINARS 2023

• 2 October 2023 (15:00-16:00 CEST) – William Gosling (University of Amsterdam) “How to structure a scientific article: For the Mapping Ancient Africa special issue of Quaternary International”; chaired by Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 18 May 2023 (17:00-18:00 CEST) – Andrea Manica (University of Cambridge) “pastclim 1.2: an R package to easily access and use paleoclimatic reconstructions“; chaired by William Gosling. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 13 April 2023 (17:00-18:00 CEST) – Emma Mbua (National Museums of Kenya) “Newly discovered fossil sites in Kenya and their implications in human evolution discussions”; chaired by Rahab Kinyanjui. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 16 March 2023 (17:00-18:00 CET) – Hannah Keller (Yale University) “Ostrich eggshell taphonomy: forager subsistence strategies and environmental indicators in northern Malawi during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene”; chaired by Lynne Quick. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 7 February 2023 (17:00-18:00 CET) – Cecile Blanchet (Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam) “Studying ancient rivers to inform our future”; chaired by Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 19 January 2023 (17:00-18:00 CET) – Céline Vidal (University of Cambridge) “Age of the oldest Homo sapiens from eastern Africa“; chaired by William Gosling. CLICK HERE IT WATCH RECORDING.

SEMINARS 2022

• 15 December 2022 (17:00-18:00 CET) – Chantal Kabonyi (University of Bukavu) “Les trois derniers millénaires d’histoire environnementale autour du lac Kivu: De la dorsale congolaise à la dorsale congo-Nil” [“The last three millennia of environmental history around Lake Kivu: From the Congolese ridge to the Congo-Nile ridge”]; chaired by Manu Chevalier. Note: This was a duel language presentation with the presentation given in French and slides containing English text. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 10 November 2022 (17:00-18:00 CET) – Manu Chevalier (University of Bonn) “An introduction to the Climate REconstruction SofTware (CREST) model”; chaired by William Gosling. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 6 October 2022 (17:00-18:00 CEST) – Verena Foerster (Universität zu Köln) Pleistocene climate variability in eastern Africa influenced hominin evolution; chaired by Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 11 April 2022 (17:00-18:00 CEST) – Sarah Ivory, Lynne Quick and Rahab Kinyanjui “The African Pollen Database, state of the art and best practices”. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 1 March 2022 (17:00-18:00 CET) – Minchao Wu (Uppsala University) “The impact of regional climate model formulation and resolution on simulated precipitation in Africa” followed by discussion of African climate systems function past and present. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 17 January 2022 (18:00-19:00 CET; 20:00-21:00 EAT) – Emmanuel Ndiema (National Museums of Kenya) “The Later Prehistory of South Eastern Lake Turkana basin” followed by discussion. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.

SEMINARS 2021

• 13 December 2021 (16:00-17:00 CET) – Tyler Faith (University of Utah) introducing his paper “Rethinking the ecological drivers of hominin evolution” (Trends in Ecology & Evolution, doi:10.1016/j.tree.2021.04.011); chaired by Lynne Quick. CLICK HERE TO WATCH RECORDING.
• 6 December 2021 (16:15-17:15 CET) – Martin Trauth (University of Potsdam) introducing his paper “Northern hemisphere glaciation, African climate and human evolution” (Quaternary Science Reviews, doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.107095); chaired by Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr

KICK-OFF MEETING (OCTOBER 2021)

The kick-off meeting of the Mapping Ancient Africa project took place on the 14 and 15 October 2021.

• Eastern Africa: National Museums of Kenya (Nairobi, Kenya)
• Southern Africa: Nelson Mandela University (Port Elisabeth, South Africa)
• Europe: University of Potsdam (Potsdam, Germany)
• Americas: Associated with the Geological Society of America congress (Portland, Oregon, USA)

This followed a hybrid (part face-to-face, part online) format, with part of the interaction taking place at each of the hubs and part online.

Pre-meeting information can be found at:

• Kick off meeting planning (14 and 15 October 2021)
• Paleo-ENSO, African climate and hominin evolution paper

In case you missed the kick off meeting, catch up with these videos of the cross-hub sessions:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9qLMZ9Vfo0o%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qnyf-EoWnS0%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent