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The second AFQUA (The African Quaternary: Environments, Ecology and Humans) International Conference and Workshops will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 14-22 July 2018.
Venue
The National Museum of Kenya.
Description
AFQUA brings developed and developing world researchers together to discuss progress in studies of the Quaternary period (the last 2.6 million years) in Africa, bridging regional divides, and fostering communication and collaboration at both regional and continental scales.
Along with talks on subjects including palaeoclimatology, palaeoecology and archaeology, equal time is dedicated to a series of focus groups and training workshops. These include thematic discussions of cutting-edge research topics, as well as workshops that introduce and train early-career and developing researchers in the skills they need to develop and communicate their science in the modern research environment.
Program
The program will include plenary talks by world-renowned experts and provide opportunities for both oral and poster presentations.
The whole event will last nine days:
- Five days of conference with oral presentations, posters and plenaries and a one-day break for field excursions (14-19 July).
- Three days of focus group discussions and specialised training workshops (20-22 July).
Registration
Registration closes 31 May 2018: https://afquacongress.wixsite.com/afqua2018/registration
Abstracts
The call for abstracts closes 30 April 2018: https://afquacongress.wixsite.com/afqua2018/abstract-submission
Financial support
Applications for support for Early Career and Developing Country researchers closes 8 April 2018.
Focus sessions
FS01: Dating and correlation of African archives of environmental change and archaeology
FS02: Quantitative palaeoclimatology, modelling and data-model comparisons
FS03: The environmental context for hominin evolution and dispersal
FS04: African Archaeological Landscapes
FS05: Africa on Fire: state-of-the-art and perspectives about fire history, fire ecology and fire-vegetation-climate interactions across tropical biomes
FS06: African palaeoecological and archaeological perspectives on land use transformation: Africa Landuse6K
FS07: Intra- Interhemispheric teleconnections
FS08: Applying the Quaternary: the role of the past in supporting the future
Further information
For more information, visit the AFQUA 2018 website: http://afquacongress.wix.com/afqua2018 or email
Workshops
Three workshops will be held after the conference. Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis. All details: https://afquacongress.wixsite.com/afqua2018/workshops
Members of PAGES' GPWG2 will conduct:
W01: Global Paleofire Working Group: Africa on Fire!
Convener(s): Julie Aleman & Boris Vannière
Duration: 3 days
Description: Two major challenges are emerging from recent and ongoing GPWG2 work: 1) local, regional, continental, and global fire history must be connected to and understood in relation to modern fire data and activities, and 2) understanding the dominant controls of fire (e.g. climate, vegetation and humans) during the late Quaternary in each region is highly dependent on collaborative, interdisciplinary research.
Africa poses a particularly critical gap in our knowledge of fire history at this time. With this workshop, we aim at building a strong network of researchers focused on fire at different temporal and spatial scales (paleoecologists, archaeologists, historians, , etc.) and identify laboratories that can act as hubs to disseminate methodologies, materials and training to other facilities. The workshop will have a significant capacity-building component and it is hoped that it will inspire new work on paleofire across the continent.
Splinter meeting
PAGES Early-Career Network (ECN) will hold a splinter meeting on 18 July.