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.
March 7, 2024
A workshop will be held at the National Museums of Kenya (Nairobi, Kenya) in June 2024. The aim of the workshop is to help authors prepare articles for the Mapping Ancient Africa (MAA) special issue proposed for publication in Quaternary International and lead by Dr. Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr. The workshop will be associated with the “1st Joint International Scientific Conference” (3-6 June). The MAA workshop is being organized by Dr. Rahab Kinyanjui, and the congress organization is being lead by Dr. Emmanuel Ndiema (click here to watch his 2022 MAA seminar) and Dr. Esther Kioko (Acting Director National Repository and Research).
For further information on attending the MAA workshop please contact Rahab directly.
To find out more about the Mapping Ancient Africa project click here.
July 16, 2023
A further nine participants were anticipated to attend the workshop but, due to a combination of the non-issue of visas, logistical difficulties and ill health, they were not able to attend at the last moment. These were: Aliyu Adamu Isa (Ahmadu Bello University), George Biddulph (University of St Andrews), Olugbenga Boboye (University of Ibadan), Husna Mashaka (University of Nairobi), Emma Mbua (National Museums of Kenya), Aissatou Thiam Ndong (University of Cheikh Diop, Dakar), Adisa Ogunfolakan (Leventis Museum of Natural History), Alice Paine (University of Oxford), and Lynne Quick (Nelson Mandela University). Some people were able to attend partly online. Some have now made it to Rome and we hope to catch up at the INQUA Rome congress (Session 64) if not before. We hope that all will continue to be involved with the Mapping Ancient Africa project.
March 27, 2023
The twelfth Mapping Ancient Africa online seminar will take place on 13 April 2023 (17:00 CEST – Please note switch to European summer time).
The seminar will be delivered via Zoom. The link for the seminar can be obtained from the MAA Slack channel or by contacting the chair of this seminar Rahab Kinyanjui. If you want to know more about the Mapping Ancient Africa project visit our web pages and please do not hesitate to get in contact if you want to get involved.
January 18, 2022
The third of a seminars in the Mapping Ancient African project took place on Monday 17 January 2022 and was given by Emmanuel Ndiema (National Museums of Kenya). You can watch the seminar now on the Ecology of the Past YouTube channel. Seminar details can be found here.
June 29, 2020
Rahab Kinyanjui
USING PALAEOECOLOGICAL PROXIES TO DETERMINE ANTHROPOGENIC IMPACT ON VEGETATION DURING PRE-COLONIAL, COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL PERIOD IN KENYA’S HIGHLANDS-CASE STUDY ABERDARE RANGES
By Rahab KINYANJUI (National Museums of Kenya: Nairobi)
In spite of the challenges and uncertainties that the larger scientific community is currently facing, I am delighted and humbled to accept one of the British Ecological Society’s Ecologist in Africa research grant for 2020. The grant will support my historical ecology project whose main goal is to apply palaeoecological and archaeological proxies to investigate the extent of anthropogenic impacts on vegetation structure and composition of one of the Kenyan Central highlands before, during, and after the colonial period.
The Aberdare range forest provide an ideal setting for this study because they have been farmed by local populations since long before colonialism, and they were heavily impacted during colonial times because of their fertile soils. This pilot project aims to reveal the land-use and land-cover dynamics of the Aberdare range forest, and it is hoped that eventually similar studies will be undertaken in other parts of the Kenyan highland forests.
Ecology of the past 