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!

SEMINARS 2023

• 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. VIDEO COMING SOON…
• 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: