Recently two ACCP MSc students had the wonderful opportunity to visit the University of Barcelona in Spain. This venture marks the start of amazing new research being conducted at the Palaeoecological Laboratory, based at Nelson Mandela University.
Dr Lynne Quick, head of the Palaeolab, together with three of our master's students as well as our postdoctoral candidate, will attend and present at European conferences this July.
On 24 April 2023 our very own Dr Charles Helm was awarded his PhD with his thesis titled: “Pleistocene vertebrate trace fossils from the Cape South Coast of South Africa: Inferences and Implications”
On 28 March eight speakers from the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience (ACCP) and the Palaeolab presented their research at the very first Palaeosciences Symposium hosted at Nelson Mandela University.
Humans delight in creating patterns in the sand, and more than 100,000 years ago - we were no different.
Read the full article, written by Heather Dugmore, as published in the Sunday Times on 02 May 2021
"This is yet more evidence that South Africa's coastline is a place where our human forebears became truly modern. Here they developed the complex cognition that defines us today."
Read the full article.
Dr Charles Helm, one of the Centre’s leading researchers and PhD candidate, recently featured on eNCA. Dr Helm informed the public of what the Centre has been up to and the significance of our research.
Below please find the link to the News feature.
YouTube link
The African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience is leaving great footprints in the scientific community, or rather we are discovering a few. We have been receiving great international coverage on some of our recent discoveries and publications. You can read these online articles covering our research - published in
TheCoversation and
Popular Archeology.
The African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience invites you to attend our annual symposium at Nelson Mandela University. This year’s theme is “The Secrets of the Cradle of Human Culture” and we will have a series of talks that unpacks the rise of modern humans long the South African coastline.
The African Centre for Palaeoscience focuses on reconstructing past environments as well as conditions that shaped the world as we know it today. Join us as speakers share the amazing history of the South African landscape and what we can learn from those who came before – focusing on the past to find a better future for all.
RSVP to Monique van Tonder (moniquevt@mandela.ac.za) before 28 February 2020.
Please note that space is limited, and an RSVP is essential.
The African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience invites you to attend our annual symposium at Nelson Mandela University. This year’s theme is “The Secrets of the Cradle of Human Culture” and we will have a series of talks that unpacks the rise of modern humans long the South African coastline.
The African Centre for Palaeoscience focuses on reconstructing past environments as well as conditions that shaped the world as we know it today. Join us as speakers share the amazing history of the South African landscape and what we can learn from those who came before – focusing on the past to find a better future for all.
RSVP to Monique van Tonder (moniquevt@mandela.ac.za) before 28 February 2020.
Alternatively join the event will be live streamed for those who cannot attend. Join us online by clicking here.
Please note that space is limited, and an RSVP is essential.
An exciting new discovery has been made by members of the ACCP and Nelson Mandela University. Fossil trackways of baby sea turtles have been unknown to date and a recent discovery, made by Dr Jan de Vynck and colleagues, has changed all that. Read the full article to find out more about this significant new find.
We at the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience would like to extend a warm welcome to Dr Jan de Vynck who has recently joined our dynamic team. We wish you all the best.
In the heart of the southern Cape the 22nd biennial SASQUA conference took place from 28 January to 1st February. The ACCP was heavily involved in the conference and contributed greatly to the overall success of SASQUA 2019.
We from the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience would like to extend a warm welcome to our newest associate, Dr Lynne Quick - palynologist, who will soon be calling Nelson Mandela University her home.
Dr. Erich Fisher, Dr. Simen Oestmo and Prof. Curtis Marean, from the ACCP, and co-authors published their findings on how humans thrived during the Toba eruption 74 thousand years ago. Click here to read the article
Dr. Hayley Cawthra, Dr. Erich Fisher and Prof. Curtis Marean, from the ACCP, and co-authors published their findings on the depositional and sea-level history on the southern continental shelf of South African in the Quaternary Science Reviews. Click here to read the article
Dr. Charles W. Helm, from the Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre, and co-authors including Dr. Jan. C De Vynck and Dr. Richard Cowling, from Nelson Mandela University, as well as Prof. Curtis Marean and Dr. Hayley Cawthra, from the ACCP, published their findings on recently discovered giraffe tracks in coastal aeolianites east of Still Bay, South Africa. Significant conclusions about prehistoric conditions and vegetation can be drawn from this discovery. Click hear to read the article
Dr. Charles W. Helm, from the Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre, and co-authors including Dr. Jan C. De Vynck, from Nelson Mandela University, and Dr, Hayley Cawthra, from the ACCP) published their findings on fossilised avian trackways in the Palaeontologia africana journal. Click here to read the article
Irene Esteban and co-authors including Dr. Richard Cowling, from Nelson Mandela University, and Prof. Rosa M. Alberta and Prof. Marion Bamford, from the ACCP, published their findings on the first quantitative and morphological study of phytoliths from the Greater Cape Floristic Region. Click here to read the article
Annette Hahn and co-authors including Dr. Hayley Cawthra, from the ACCP, published their findings on how the anticyclonic circulation in the Southern Hemisphere drives oceanic and climatic conditions in the Holocene southernmost Africa. These new results suggest that the coincidence of humid conditions and cooler sea surface temperatures along the south coast of South Africa resulted from a strengthened and more southerly anticyclonic circulation. Click here to read the article
Alberto Collareta and co-authors including Prof. Curtis Marean, from the ACCP, published their findings on Cetopirus complanatus form the late Middle Pleistocene human settlement of Pinnacle Point 13B in Mossel Bay, South Africa. Click here to read this article
Prof. Richard Cowling, from the ACCP, and co-authors explain the evolution of the longitudinal gradient in Cape plant diversity at the hand of Levyn’s Law. They published their findings in Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa. Click here to read the article
D.L Roberts and co-authors including Dr. Hayley Cawthra, Dr. Frank Neumann, Prof. Richard Cowling and Prof. Marion Bamford, from the ACCP, published in Global Planetary Change. This multi-proxy study provided new insight into fluvial deposition, ecosystems, phytogeography and sea-level history during the late Paleogene-early Neogene. Click here to read the article
Dr. Hayley Cawthra, from the ACCP, and co-authors published their contributions on the pronounced climatic/oceanographic gradients around the southern African coastline. Click here to read the article
A warm, heartfelt congratulations to Dr. Jan C. De Vynck who was awarded his PhD in Oceanography (Biological) (unconditional acceptance) on 19 April 2018.
The Palaeoscape III workshop which took place in the winter of 2017 yielded interesting findings as the palaeoscientists continued to pursue the knowledge of how exactly the first people to think like us experienced the world.
Reporter Nicky Willemse interviewed Nelson Mandela University's Honorary Professor Curtis Marean and Distinguished Professor Richard Cowling and had this to say... (click here)
Researchers and students from NMMU’s new Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience (CCP) attended and presented at the 39th annual Fynbos Forum, held in Port Elizabeth from 25-28 July.
Jan de Vycnk, an NMMU PhD candidate in the CCP, and colleagues have published the first results from the coastal foraging project in the Journal of Human Evolution. Click here to read the article.
NMMU student, Jan de Vynck, has published the findings from his Masters research in PeerJ. Click here to read the article.
The Coexistence Approach is a widely used method for reconstructing past climates. The authors highlight a string of theoretical problems with this approach and suggest alternative methods that will provide more robust reconstructions. The full text of this paper is available from here.
NMMU recently took a proverbial leap into the future through the benefits of interdisciplinary research as it explores the mysteries of yesteryear.