Mapping Ancient Africa: Climate, vegetation & humans

April 14, 2026
WDG

The Mapping Ancient Africa (MAA) special issue in Quaternary International (QI) is now complete. Many thanks to all who contributed to the issue, and special thanks to my co-guest editors Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr and Rahab Kinyanjui, and QI editor Evdokia Tema, for their efforts in putting this together.

To wrap up the MAA special issue the guest editors have written an editorial covering the work of this multi-year project. In this we draw out key themes that have emerged from the work (vegetation dynamics, fire, and human behavior), review the project activities (including workshop photos), and highlight other publications by MAA members (lots of other exciting work going on). You can read all about it in:

The MAA multi-year project supported by INQUA is now in its final stages. We have delivered our final workshop (South Africa), our special issue, and created a body of online resources via this blog and the YouTube channel (>50 MAA videos!) that will hopefully inform and inspire researchers interested in past environmental change in Africa. Most importantly I hope that we have build a network of people (>140 members on our email list at the time of writing) who are passionate and engaged with understanding how climate, vegetation and humans have helped shape the African continent. I hope that these connections will keep building over the coming years and new projects, papers and insights will emerge.

The Ecology of the Past blog will continue, however, it will – of course – miss the regular input from the MAA project. Therefore, if anyone has suitable academic content that they wish to communicate through the blog please do not hesitate to get in contact.

A final thanks to INQUA Palaeoclimate commission (PALCOM) and Humans and Biosphere commission (HABCOM) for their support for MAA since its inception in 2021. Without this funding none of the work would have been possible.

For full list of MAA articles click here.

INQUAlogo

Dutch Earth & Environmental Science Conference 2026

April 11, 2026
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“Common Ground”

NWO NAC (Dutch Earth & Environmental Sciences Conference)

9-10 April 2026

The annual Dutch Earth & Environmental Science conference took place at the NH Noordwijk Conference Centre Leeuwenhorst in Noordwijkerhout amoung some of the many Dutch flower fields.

Before the conference was a “Strategic evening” which provided an opportunity to meet scientists from other universities and organisations, and to discuss topical issues. This included a presentation of the recently completed “Earth & Environmental Science Vision” document (which can be dowloaded from the AMW Raad [Earth & Environmental Science Council] web page).

On the first day of the conference proper I was involved in chairing two sessions on “Palaeoclimate”. These sessions covered a wide range of topics, proxies and time periods, and included work on the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, tipping points, and the Younger Dryas period. Excitingly for chairing these sessions I recieved a pair of NWO NAC socks!

On the second day of the conference – sporting my new NAC socks – I presented our recently published work on landscape openness in the pre-farming European landscape. This was centred upon the recent publication of the palaeoecological record from Well-Aijen (Limburg, the Netherlands) which was the culmination of many years, and many students, research (Gosling et al., 2025). It was great to get positive feedback from the Dutch scientific community on this study. The session also included exciting work on reconstructing past climate from pollen data using the CREST model (Chevalier, 2022) and the extraction of biodiversity data from sedimentary pollen records.

As well as the science talks the meeting had posters, exhibitors, workshops (I attended the one of scientific drilling) and social events (pub quiz, bowling, dancing). The atmosphere was very friendly and it was very easy to meet new people. The area around is very pretty and I even managed to get out for a short run on one of the days. I would recommend this event to anyone working in Earth or environmental sciences in the Netherlands.

References

  • Chevalier, M. (2022). crestr: An R package to perform probabilistic climate reconstructions from palaeoecological datasets. Climate of the Past, 18(4), 821–844. https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-821-2022
  • Gosling, W. D., de Wolf, I. K., Witteveen, N. H., de Zwaan, S. B., van Teulingen, C., Föllmi, D., Thissen, W., Vink, V. B., Woutersen, A., Philip, A. L., van Herk, M. J., Nascimento, M. N., Prins, M. A., & McMichael, C. N. H. (2025). Herbivory and vegetation openness in a pre-farming European landscape. Plant Ecology & Diversity, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/17550874.2025.2576566

Herbivory and vegetation openness in a pre-farming European landscape

November 19, 2025
WDG

Plant Ecology & Diversity

Gosling, W. D., de Wolf, I. K., Witteveen, N. H., de Zwaan, S. B., Van Teulingen, C., Föllmi, D., Thissen, W., Vink, V. B., Woutersen, A., Philip, A. L., van Herk, M. J., Nascimento, M. N., Prins, M. A., & McMichael, C. N. H. (2025). Herbivory and vegetation openness in a pre-farming European landscape. Plant Ecology & Diversity, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/17550874.2025.2576566

This manuscript has been developed over many years through the contributions of many MSc and BSc students based at the University of Amsterdam.

Charcoal insights on the vegetation, climate and subsistence patterns at Wonderwerk Cave

June 10, 2025
WDG

Mapping Ancient Africa Quaternary International special issue article #6

Hlophe B. & Bamford M.K. (2025) Charcoal insights on the vegetation, climate and subsistence patterns at Wonderwerk Cave. Quaternary International 728,109755. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2025.109755

To find the complete list of articles in the Mapping Ancient Africa special issue of Quaternary International click here.

Drivers of vegetation change in tropical Africa

April 9, 2025
WDG

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.

Heat, hydroclimate and herbivory

January 6, 2025
WDG

Mapping Ancient Africa Quaternary International special issue article #5

Kiely, R.E., Paine, A.R., McMichael, C.H. & Gosling, W.D. (2025) Heat, hydroclimate and herbivory: A late-Pleistocene record of environmental change from tropical western Africa. Quaternary International 717, 109636. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2024.109636

To find the complete list of articles in the Mapping Ancient Africa special issue of Quaternary International click here.

Fieldwork in the Drakensberg

December 11, 2024
WDG

South African research trip (part 3 of 3)

by Jelle Kraak

As part of my MSc Biological Sciences research project at the University of Amsterdam I  travelled to Africa, where I first presented the early findings of my research at the SASQUA congress (blog post 1) in Oudtshoorn (Western cape), before heading to the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (blog post 2). Here I met up with local experts and prepared for the upcoming fieldwork, which the previous parts of this blog series covered. Now, the time has come for the final and best part, about my fieldwork in the absolutely gorgeous Drakensberg mountains.

Aims: As the samples for my research had already been collected earlier by my supervisors Prof. Dr. Jemma Finch & Prof. Dr. Trevor Hill for the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, our initial goal was to collect various samples (charcoal, sediment cores, etc) for the next students. During my time at the university of Kwa-Zulu natal, however, we realized that it would be great to collect a bunch of C3 and C4 grass species, to extract phytoliths (amorphous silica particles formed in plant tissues) from, which would help with the interpretation of our data. This then became our new focus. To achieve this goal we visited the Drakensberg twice, one day trip in the weekend, and one trip with an overnight stay.

Day 1

After a night of utterly terrible sleep (I was alone on the AirBnB property, the gate did not lock due to the cold, and our dogs started barking at something (someone!?) at 2AM), I woke up at 6AM to get ready for the long day ahead of us. Jemma came to pick me up at the, bringing coffee with her, which I really appreciated. We then picked up Trevor at their place and began our drive towards the mountains.  I had not seen much of the landscape in the Kwa-Zulu Natal province, which turned out to be very compared to the Western Cape. Whereas the western cape had fynbos vegetation (very similar to the Mediterranean, KZN was more savanna like. There was grass everywhere the eye could see, except for the patches of spruce, planted by humans. Halfway through the drive the Drakensberg mountains came into view, which was stunning. We then drove through some small villages, until we finally arrived at the Berg.

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European Conference of Tropical Ecology: Registration Open

November 14, 2024
WDG

We are excited that more than 250 abstracts have been submitted for the 8th European Conference of Tropical Ecology “Time for Tropical Ecology” in Amsterdam. Furthermore, we are delighted to announce the NWO (the Dutch Science Foundation) as the main sponsors of the event. The conference is being organised by the Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics (University of Amsterdam) on behalf of the European Society of Tropical Ecology. The conference will take place in February 2025 at a central location in the city (Hotel Casa).

We have an exciting program emerging including keynotes from three ‘rising star’ and three ‘senior’ scientists, a conference dinner (House of Watt), and a photo competition with prizes! Throughout the program we hope to create a vibrant atmosphere for the discussion of cutting edge research into the tropical regions of planet Earth.

You can be a part of this event by registering now. Early bird rate is valid until: 18 December 2024

Quantifying past forest cover and biomass changes in the Ecuadorian Amazon

November 7, 2024
WDG

Open access:

Witteveen, N.H., Kleijwegt, Z.S., Geara, H., Kool, C., Blaus, A., Saenz, L.C., Gomes, B.T., Philip, A., Bush, M.B. & McMichael, C.N.H. (2024) Quantifying past forest cover and biomass changes in the Ecuadorian Amazon. New Phytologist. DOI: 10.1111/nph.20237

This paper is the latest to come from the PhD thesis of Nina Witteveen who defended at the University of Amsterdam earlier in 2024. To find out more about Nina’s PhD click here.

Highland forest dynamics across equatorial East Africa during the end ofthe African humid period

November 6, 2024
WDG

MAPPING ANCIENT AFRICA QUATERNARY INTERNATIONAL SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE #2

Ivory, S.J., MacDougal, E., Mason, A., Pereboom, E., Garelick, S., Ficken, K., Wooller, M.J., Nakileza, B. & Russell, J. (2024) Highland forest dynamics across equatorial East Africa during the end of the African humid period. Quaternary International. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2024.10.007

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