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.

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Mapping Ancient Africa: Scientists

March 31, 2026
WDG

The Mapping Ancient Africa (MAA) research and writing workshop took place in South Africa during March 2026 (click here for more details). During the workshop four of the scientists participating were interviewed by MAA leader Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr to find out more about them, what they are focused on, and their aspirations for the future. These are now avaliable on the Mapping Ancient Africa YouTube playlist along with all the other videos from the project.

Participants

Zahra Omarjee (University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

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Mapping Ancient Africa: Research & writing workshop

March 6, 2026
WDG

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).

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Climate frameworks for the Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age in Northwest Africa

December 15, 2024
WDG

Mapping Ancient Africa Quaternary International special issue article #4

#openaccess

Boisard, S., Wren, C.D., Timbrell, L. & Burke, A. (2025) Climate frameworks for the Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age in Northwest Africa. Quaternary International 716, 109593. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2024.109593

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

INQUA Fellowship journey: Alfred Hougnon (field work)

October 19, 2024
WDG

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.

Mapping Ancient Africa: Scientists

August 12, 2024
WDG

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.

The participants (part 1 of 2)

Olugbenga Boboye (University of Ibadan, Nigeria)

Angela Effiom (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa)

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New PODCAST: Human & Biosphere

January 11, 2024
WDG

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The International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) supports a number of commissions which focus on more specific aspects of Quaternary research. One of these, the Human & Biosphere Commission, or HABCOM, has recently launched a podcast introducing its members and activities. To find out more about HABCOM listen to the podcast below, or click this link to visit the related INQUA web pages.

Mapping Ancient Africa: INQUA congress support

October 4, 2022
WDG

The Mapping Ancient Africa (MAA) project is offering five bursaries to help African based and/or early career researchers^ attend the up coming INQUA Rome congress. Each bursary will around Euro 1000 and should be used towards covering the cost of registration, accommodation and/or travel for the congress.

Application criteria:

  • Abstract submitted to INQUA Rome congress either to the Mapping Ancient Africa session, or to another session on a related topic (Deadline 1 November 2022).
  • Commitment to contributing an article for consideration to be published in the proposed MAA special issue of Quaternary International; for frame of references of the MAA project click here.

To apply submit the following information via emails to William Gosling as the corresponding Principle Investigator of the project. Applications should be clearly marked MAA-Application-YourName in the subject line:

  • Evidence of submission of an abstract to the INQUA Rome congress (copy of confirmation email and abstract).
  • Letter of motivation, including fit of the proposed article to the MAA aims and goals and statement of commitment to submit an article for consideration to be published in the Mapping Ancient Africa special issue of Quaternary International^^ (not more than 1 page)
  • Short academic CV, including highlight of up to 5 published articles indicating the scientific importance and your role in the publication (not more than 2 pages).

In the event of more applications being received than funding is available awards will be made by the MAA team (PIs and co-PIs) on the basis of the fit of the research to the MAA aims and goals. To receive funding receipts for all the expenses incurred will need to be provided (following INQUA regulations).

Deadline for application: 7 November 2022

Announcement of funding: 14 November 2022

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^ following definition for Early Career Researchers (ECR) or Developing Country Researchers (DCR) provided by INQUA.

^^ please note that no guarantee of final publication is given or implied by this commitment. All submitted manuscripts will be subject to the usual rigorous peer review procedures for the journal.

Mapping Ancient Africa: Seminar 6

June 8, 2022
WDG

The sixth online Mapping Ancient Africa seminar will take place on Tuesday 21 June at 17:00 CEST

The seminar will be delivered via Zoom. The link for the seminar can be obtained from the MAA Slack page, or from seminar chair and chaired by Lynne Quick.

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Mapping Ancient Africa: Video of Seminar 5

April 12, 2022
WDG

The fifth Mapping Ancient African project took place on Monday 11 April 2022 and focused on the African Pollen Database and past vegetation change in Africa.

The seminar was delivered by Sarah Ivory (Penn State University), Rahab Kinyanjui (National Museums of Kenya), and Lynne Quick (Nelson Mandela University). The seminar covers the principles behind and the working of the African Pollen Database (why make data openly available?) and the latest advances in eastern and southern Africa.

For more about the African Pollen Database check out:

You can watch the seminar now on the Ecology of the Past YouTube channel. Seminar details can be found here.

Lynne Quick
Lynne Quick
Sarah Ivory
Rahab Kinyanjui
Rahab Kinyanjui
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