2018/2019 Newsletter A Note from the President Two years have flown by since the 21st SASQUA biennial congress in Johannesburg. At that BGM it was decided to hold the next congress at Mossel Bay. Hayley Cawthra and Lynne Quick got to work to arrange a very successful 22nd SASQUA congress in the context of the southern Cape coastline. The congress location, literally “on the rocks” at The Point Hotel, attracted 62 delegates as well as day registrants who were interested in specific sessions. The numbers were boosted by the involvement of members of the INQUA International Focus Group, Southern Hemisphere Assessment of Palaeo-Environments (SHAPE). The field trip led by Curtis Marean and Hayley Cawthra to the Pinnacle Point cave complex and the MIS 11 strandline deposits at Klein Brak estuary was a highlight of the event. Curtis’ plenary address on the “General model for the ecology of the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain” highlighted the value that inter-disciplinary research has added to archaeological and palaeo-anthropological studies in the region. The volume of high quality publications that the southern Cape region had produced over the past two decades has reinforced the value that contextual studies can add to archaeological studies. Southern Africa clearly has tremendous potential to offer Quaternarists so it is encouraging that after the congress our local membership has increased to 80 (including student/life/honorary members) and 24 overseas based members. SASQUA has welcomed 21 new members since the previous congress. Unfortunately we have also lost some members due to their retirement and the passing of longstanding members Rodney Maud, John Catt and Dave Roberts as well as Karl Butzer. The forthcoming INQUA congress in Dublin, Ireland in late July is an event to look forward to and I hope that SASQUA members are able to get involved in the activities of the Commissions where your contribution will be valuable. I’d like to thank the outgoing committee for their support over the past inter-congress period. Abi Stone was an innovative and active Secretary who kept members informed about international activities via social media links from abroad. My colleagues at the Council for Geoscience in Pietermaritzburg, Treasurer Rebekah Singh and her assistant Pat Dlamini, have done a good job of invoicing members and maintaining the financial and membership records. Hayley Cawthra’s newsletters have been high class publications full of news and recent publications. I feel confident in handing over the reins of SASQUA to the new President, Lynne Quick, and her enthusiastic young committee. Dr Greg Botha Council for Geoscience 1 SASQUA Committee (2017 – 2019) President Dr Greg Botha (Council for Geoscience) Vice President Dr Lynne Quick (Nelson Mandela University) Past President Prof Marion Bamford (University of the Witwatersrand) Secretary Dr Abi Stone (University of Manchester) Treasurer Mrs Rebekah Singh (Council for Geoscience) Early Career Representative Mr Abraham Dabengwa (University of Cape Town) Newsletter Editor Dr Hayley Cawthra (Council for Geoscience, Nelson Mandela University) SASQUA Committee (2019 – 2021) President Dr Lynne Quick (Nelson Mandela University) Vice President Dr Hayley Cawthra (Council for Geoscience, Nelson Mandela University) Past President Dr Greg Botha (Council for Geoscience) Secretary Dr Vincent Hare (University of Cape Town) Treasurer Mrs Rebekah Singh (Council for Geoscience) Early Career Representative Dr Emma Loftus (University of Cambridge) Newsletter Editor Ms Nadia du Plessis (University of Cape Town) 2 Research News, Updates and Recent Publications Graham Avery established were followed; labourers reported several occurrences as they cleared the faces Iziko Museums of South Africa for walling and the author, as monitor, was able to recover valuable stratigraphic and ABSTRACT: AFQUA - THE AFRICAN lithological information about the aeolian QUATERNARY: environments, ecology and deposits and to recover significant material, humans, 14 to 19 July 2018, Nairobi, Kenya that included a Plio-Pleistocene marine mollusc deposit and Late Pleistocene hyaena Palaeontological Awareness Training, accumulations with terrestrial vertebrates, Monitoring a Win-Win for the local Community including a rare human element, and MSA and Palaeontology: The Saldanha Bay-Pepper material, which will be lodged in the Iziko Bay Harbour Revetment Project Collections. Graham Avery and Richard G. Klein Analysis of the hyaena accumulations provides a window on palaeo-biodiversity, palaeo- A project to stabilize dangerously-eroding environment and human and brown hyaena embankments in Saldanha harbour was behaviour. Study of the mollusc sample and initiated by the South African Department of dating will enable us to place these and other Public Works. The embankments had occurrences within an improved regional previously revealed Late Pleistocene brown framework. hyaena accumulations and a Middle Stone Age occurrence and Heritage Western Cape Funds to enable my attendance were provided required a palaeontological and archaeological by PAST. impact assessment, which was undertaken by the author. Requirements were employment and skills Hayley Cawthra training for about 80 unemployed Saldanha Council for Geoscience: Geophysics and Remote community members. Most were labourers, Sensing Unit; Nelson Mandela University: African but individuals showing leadership qualities Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience became team supervisors; two have been employed permanently by the Contractor Guerrini Marine Construction (GMC). Training I continue to work on the South Coast shelf and included palaeontological awareness, inter- coastal plain from the Breede River to personal skills, health and safety, Plettenberg Bay where we focus on (1) environmental and HIV-Aids awareness. reconstructing the Pleistocene Palaeoscape (with a large group of colleagues under the Palaeontological awareness training, by the leadership of Professors Curtis Marean, author, for all employees comprised Richard Cowling and Janet Franklin), (2) PowerPoint presentations to illustrate the investigating proxies for past sea level from value of heritage remains, examples of coastal and submerged aeolianite and potential finds and protocols for dealing with cemented beach deposits and (3) any find(s), followed by viewing of actual fossils palaeoclimatic and environmental proxies from similar contexts. Awareness gained paid from sediment cores with partners on the dividends as was reflected in the enthusiasm of German – South African ‘RAiN’ project, PI management and work teams. Protocols Matthias Zabel (Hahn et al., 2017; Zabel et al., 3 2017). I work closely with Charles Helm, who Table Bay and St Francis Bay, I am a co- maps out ichnofossil trackways in coastal supervisor to Mr Athi Mfikili who is a PhD aeolianites on the Cape South Coast to student working on suspected palaeo-tsunami establish geological context in coastal deposits in the Eastern Cape and he has cored Pleistocene deposits. Charles has documented the Dwarskersbos sediments in St Helena Bay, numerous new sites and we have published a which have experienced two known meteo series of articles. In Pondoland, on the Wild tsunamis in the last 50 years. Mr Hlanganani Coast, our team of Erich Fisher, Irene Esteban, Shange has just started an MSc through the Justin Pargeter and I are co-PIs on the P5 ‘Canyon Connections’ project and he is project and are conducting research in rock investigating submarine canyon heads on the shelters and on the landscape between Pondoland shelf (canyon evolution and these Waterfall Bluff and the Mtentu River. environments as prospective coelacanth habitats). At the CGS I lead the marine geoscience programme which aims to map the entire Current Involvement in Projects Exclusive Economic Zone using five geophysical The CGS’ Marine Geoscience Programme instruments and produce seamless onshore- offshore geological maps. We have Developing and Testing an Integrated commenced in the Western and Eastern Cape Paleoscape Model for the early Middle and Provinces. From the perspective of ‘ocean Late Pleistocene of the South Coast of governance’, I continue work on the South South Africa (Palaeoscape Project) African extended shelf claim which is lodged Pondoland Palaeoclimate, with the United Nations and I serve as the Palaeoenvironment, Palaeoecology, technical advisor on the South African team for Palaeoanthropology (P5) the International Seabed Authority, where we Tracing Human and Climate impacts in are drafting legal code to include deep-ocean Southern Africa (TRACES) minerals in the United Nations Convention of Deep Forests: Foundational Science to the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The same team Benefits and Management of Deep Coral of people is now focussing on developing a and Seaweed NRF African Coelacanth National Legislation for marine mining, with Ecosystem Programme close consideration of best environmental Canyon Connections: The ecological role of practice. submarine canyons in supporting continental shelf and coastal biodiversity I spent three months in Germany on as a Junior and productivity along the east of South Fellow of the Hanse-Wissenschaft Kolleg Africa, and the implications for their (Delmenhorst) from 1 November 2017 – 31 conservation NRF African Coelacanth January 2018 where I worked with colleagues Ecosystem Programme at the MARUM Institute, University of Bremen. Commissions/Committee Membership Together with Alastair Potts (Nelson Mandela University) and Naomi