Background
Given the unique geographical position of Nelson Mandela University – situated at the possible ground-zero of human cognitive origins as well as a locus for a diverse range of biotic radiations – the university is ideally situated to engage in national and international collaboration to investigate fundamental evolutionary questions.
A major aim of the ACCP will be to formalise and strengthen the existing collaborations between Nelson Mandela University and the other institutions, both nationally and internationally, that have cognate research interests. The initial focus will be on reconstructing the Quaternary palaeo-landscape and seascape (“palaeoscape”) of the south and southeast coasts. This reconstruction will enable the development of testable hypotheses on the selective regimes that shaped the region’s biota, including modern humans. No region anywhere else in the world offers such an opportunity.
The geographical domain of the ACCP incorporates the seascapes and landscapes of South Africa’s south and southeast coasts. This region encompasses much of the Greater Cape Floristic Region and Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany biodiversity hotspots, and supports an extraordinarily rich array of Middle and Later Stone Age archaeological sites.
Vision
To lead pioneering coastal palaeoscience research on the southern African coast, generating world-class insights into past climates, landscapes and human–environment interactions. We aim to build African scientific capacity and translate palaeoenvironmental knowledge into meaningful contributions toward sustainability, heritage stewardship and societal resilience in a changing world.
Mission
The Mission of ACCP is to conduct and coordinate Quaternary palaeoscientific research in an interdisciplinary context on the south and southeast coast of South Africa. The Centre also aims to build human capacity through postgraduate training.
Strategic objectives
The proposed Centre will:
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Conduct and stimulate research across all fields of palaeoscience that provide context for understanding the evolution of biota, with a focus on the human lineage;
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Promote and facilitate inter-disciplinary, intra-institutional and inter-institutional palaeoscience research; and
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Provide tuition in palaeosciences at undergraduate (by exposing students to the palaeosciences within existing modules) and postgraduate levels, and foster co-supervision of postgraduate students by international leaders in different fields.
Why ACCP matters
Over the past decade, the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience (ACCP) has helped turn the once-drowned Palaeo-Agulhas Plain from a vague idea on the continental shelf into one of the best-described extinct ecosystems in the world. Working with South African and international partners, ACCP researchers have mapped the geology and soils of this “Serengeti of the South”, reconstructed its rivers, wetlands and coastlines, and modelled how its unique mosaic of grasslands, floodplains and fynbos-thicket vegetation would have looked during the last glacial maximum.
By combining geoscience, palaeoecology, archaeology and ecology, the Centre has shown how the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain supported dense populations of large mammals and provided a rich, stable resource base for early modern humans. Work on fossil trackways and ichnosites along the Cape south coast has revealed elephants, other megafauna and even hominin footprints moving across the ancient dune systems that once fringed the plain, offering a rare behavioural window into this lost landscape. Parallel studies using ecological modelling and fossil data have demonstrated that large mammals on the plain were remarkably resilient to past climate swings, yet highly vulnerable to the impacts of recent humans, underscoring powerful lessons for modern conservation.
Together with detailed reconstructions of vegetation, herbivore distributions and human foraging potential, this body of work underpins a fully integrated model of the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain as a key refuge for Homo sapiens and a driver of our species’ evolutionary success. Today, ACCP’s research on this submerged world is reshaping global debates on human origins, past climate change and coastal resilience, while inspiring new approaches to conserving the modern Cape south coast and its biodiversity.