Humans and Biosphere Commission,
President’s Annual Report 2013-2014
HAB COMM Mission
The Humans and Biosphere Commission fosters problem-oriented study of the effects that
changes in Quaternary climates and palaeoenvironments have had on organisms
(individuals, communities, species), as well as the relationships between humans and their
environment. The Commission promotes innovative cross-disciplinary research and
communication, notably by helping to bring together specialists in all sub-fields of
palaeoecology, archaeology, geology and palaeoanthropology, including experts in the study
of cultural processes, in order to understand human responses to global and regional
changes. An ancillary goal is to provide a unifying framework for the exchange of
information between palaeoecologists and neo-ecologists working on issues of global
change. The Commission promotes interchange among specialists from any and all nations
of the world, involving young scientists and those from developing countries.
HAB COMM Officers
President: Nicki Whitehouse: School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences,
Plymouth University (email: nicola.whitehouse@plymouth.ac.uk)
Vice-Presidents: Yan Zhao (Lanzhou University, China) and Luis Borrero (CONICET &
University
of
Buenos
Aires,
Argentina).
Emails:
yanzhao@lzu.edu.cn;
laborrero2003@yahoo.com
Secretary:
Mike
Akaegbobi
izumike20022002@yahoo.com
Newsletter
editor:
Encarni
Encarni.Montoya@open.ac.uk
(University
Motoya
of
(Open
Ibadan,
University,
Nigeria).
Email:
UK).
Email:
Early Career Researcher (ECR) Reps: Sallie Borrough and Alex MacKay (Emails:
mackay.ac@gmail.com)
Summary of activities over 2013:
(i)
List of corresponding members
Our list of corresponding members stands at 450 individuals. We have good coverage of
members in Europe and the US, but our list of members elsewhere is more limited. Efforts
continue to be made to target these individuals, via emails to other organizations and lists
and the use of social media to highlight the activities of the Commission. Following
attendance at the PAGES OSM meeting in India (Feb 2013) we are making some headway in
making contacts with researchers here, as exemplified by an application for funding from a
group we have not previously interacted with but with whom contact was made at the
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meeting. We are currently working with the Advisory Board to increase geographical
coverage.
(ii) Communications with members
ii.i Newsletter
Communication of our activities and projects continues to be facilitated via a regular
newsletter, with regular copy and material coming in for dissemination. It is encouraging
that HAB COMM project applicants now see the newsletter as a useful forum for the
dissemination of activities and project information. Last year, 2 newsletters were produced,
every six months; the next newsletter is planned for March 2014.
The newsletter editor, Encarni Motoya, continues to greatly assist with the production of
regular newsletters. Material is driven by the President and Secretary on specific Hab Comm
activities, updates on Hab Comm projects and meetings (via project leaders) and material
;submitted via the members themselves.
Newsletters are emailed out to the list of members, advertised on Twitter and uploaded
onto our web site, where there is now a dedicated section for current and past newsletters.
ii.ii HAB COMM web site
The HAB COMM web site http://www.inqua.org/habcom/index.html has recently received a
‘face lift’ and update in design following new design and structure work on the main INQUA
web site. The site is regularly maintained and updated and kept up to date by Dr Phil Barratt.
News items and meetings of interest are posted up regularly, mostly generated as a result of
the newsletter traffic and items sent to us directly for posting. There is an archival section
for newsletters.
(iii) Appointment of Advisory Board
We have a full Advisory Board fully established; we aimed to have a reasonable coverage of
expertise of archaeology and palaeoecology, across different regions of the world, as
follows:
Dr Jean Philippe Brugal, (France) archaeozoology
Dr Brian Chase (France) palaeoecology
Dr Jacqueline Gill (US); palaeoecology
Prof Simon Haberle (Australia); palaeoecology, human-environment interactions
Prof Gary Haynes (US); anthropology
Prof Steve Jackson (US); palaeoecology
Prof Houyuan Lu (China); palaeoecology
Prof Donatella Magri (Italy); palaeoecology
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Prof Akira Matsui (Japan); wetland archaeology
Prof Kathleen Morrison (US); archaeology & historical anthropology
Dr Christine Ogola (Africa) archaeology
The role of the advisory board will be to help guide and promote the direction of the
Commission and help facilitate the setting up of IFG’s and projects. It is my intention to
make much greater use of the Advisory Board going forward and particularly to help shape
the overall strategic direction of the Commission beyond the next Congress.
(iv) ECR activities
We continue with ECR activities via the efforts of Sallie Burrough and Alex MacKay.
Alex helped to organise a publication workshop under the banner of HAB COMM at the first
INQUA meeting for Early Career Researchers held at the University of Wollongong (UOW) in
the austral summer of 2013. The workshop, Writing for Publication, featured Colin MurrayWallace, Editor in Chief at Quaternary Science Reviews, and Robin Torrence, Editor at Journal
of Archaeological Science. The workshop produced strong feedback and interest. A Report
on this meeting and workshop featured in the January 2014 newsletter for HAB COMM.
Aside from the Wollongong conference, the role of the ECR’s over the last year has been one
mainly of building important networks and disseminating information. Whilst some of this
has occurred in the guise of informal meet-ups at international conferences it has mainly
taken shape through social media particularly Twitter and Facebook. Twitter now has a
following of 299 individuals and has made 465 tweets since its inception. In particular it
provides a useful way to bring to the attention of followers new papers and research from
the INQUA community. https://twitter.com/INQUA_ECR
Facebook similarly has a large reach with a total of nearly 500 followers (~56% women, 41%
men); these individuals are across all age ranges and career stages though are focused
heavily within the 25-34 age range. Whilst followers are based in 46 different countries, they
are dominated by the UK, Australia, Germany and the US. The facebook page is very actively
used for a range of news but particularly for job and grant opportunities – anyone can post
these and we encourage people to do so, as this was the strongest request that came back
from canvassing our peers www.facebook.com/INQUAECR
Meetings between the ECR committee take place by email and skype but opportunities to
meet up are few and far between. Each commission rep has written a piece for the website
which provides a flavour of their profile and research.
http://www.inqua.org/ecr.html
Sallie and Alex report that they would like to find out what general ECR’s want from the
social media in order that they might focus, broaden, or diversify so they are currently
designing a survey to be disseminated via weblinks.
In late July 2013, Brian Chase and Alex Mackay hosted an ECR-specific meeting for the
HabComm project, 'Contexts and controls on modern human behaviour', in the Cederberg
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Mountains of South Africa. The objectives of the meet were to foster collaboration and data
sharing between young researchers working on different classes of archaeological /
palaeoenvironmental data in different regions of southern Africa. The seven attendees
presented data-heavy papers on environmental, faunal, lithic and occupational patterns
from late Pleistocene archives relevant to the emergence of modern human behaviour. This
was followed by a lively and engaging round-table discussion of the strengths and
weaknesses of existing data and theoretical systems for understanding behavioural
evolution in the region. Collaborative output from this meeting is expected to emerge in
2014.
(v) Reporting on HAB COMM projects
Hab Comm had 2 projects (PI’s: Ogola; Chase) approved for carry over and new funding in
2013, all projects provided reports by the required deadline.
Chase & McKay’s project ‘Context and controls on modern human behaviour in southern
Africa: human- environment interactions in the late Pleistocene’ report that their activities in
2013 have focused on (i) the continued compilation of a database of environmental and
archaeological data from southern Africa; a) that participants have provided information on
available environmental and archaeological datasets, access restrictions, and their spatial
and temporal coverage summaries have been compiled into a single database with a basic
synthesis of all available data; b) that the spreadsheet is available to all participants and
allows the identification of data overlap and data coverage gaps; c) the data synthesis
provides a basis for the development of research questions and avenues of collaboration to
be further explored when all participants meet; (ii) meeting near Cape Town in July 2013, at
which many team members were present. Participants presented their work, and
discussions were focused on how the streams of research could be optimally combined to
meet the projects goals. The goal has been set to publish a special issue in QI with a series of
papers on the project topic. This will be reflected in a session at the INQUA congress in 2015,
for which a session proposal has been submitted.
A publication has emanated from the project: Mackay, A., Stewart, B, Chase, B.M. (In
Revision), Coalescence and fragmentation in the late Pleistocene archaeology of
southernmost Africa. Journal of Human Evolution.
They were unable to organize a full project meeting due to conflicts in participants’
fieldwork schedules and insufficient funding. They request that the remaining funds from
2012 (€2628.19) be rolled- over to 2014 so that they are able to cover transportation and
meeting costs for an additional meeting in Cape Town in May 2014. They have not claimed
funds for 2013.
Ogola and Kinyanjui’s Conference: ‘Equatorial Eastern Africa Quaternary, Climate Change
and Variability’ went ahead as planned. All funds were spent. The conference was held in
Nanyuki, near Mt. Kenya in July 2013 and was co-hosted by National Museums of Kenya. It
was attended by 55 delegates from 14 countries and co-sponsored by the National
Museums of Kenya (NMK), the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA), the
Embassy of France (Nairobi), the French Institute for Research and Development (IRD) and
PAGES. A full report on the meeting can be found in the January 2014 HAB COMM
newsletter.
Several important developments emanated from the meeting, including plans for two
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possible collaborative research areas in carnivore ecology and heritage resource
development. As a consequence of this, HAB COMM has received an application for funding
for a project on African large carnivores (Leaders: Mwebi and Brugal) – see below.
A business meeting was held at the end of the conference and the following resolutions
made:
1. The EAQUA secretariat will work on publicity and outreach programs to increase the
membership base, including affiliation with similar research associations and
reaching out to other eastern African countries not yet participating in EAQUA
activities e.g. South Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia with the
aim of mobilizing more researchers and students from eastern Africa to join the
association.
2. Set up a mentoring and capacity building program designed to be a pre-conference
activity involving training on research, technical and logistical planning, grant
applications as well as preparation of conference presentations and publications.
3. Funds will be sourced for an EAQUA research program to include field training of students
and young researchers.
4. The local organizing committee and EAQUA secretariat will coordinate the publication of
the current conference proceedings in Quaternary International.
5. Members were urged to participate in the upcoming INQUA early career researchers and
Pan African Quaternary research association workshops.
(vi) New Projects and International Focus Groups
Considerable efforts have been expended in this area over the last year by the President to
ensure good quality applications and ideas have been encouraged and put forward for
funding.
As a consequence, 8 new proposals have come forward for funding for consideration. The
range of these proposals covers diverse areas, including some of the research topics that
HAB COMM has been actively involved in the past, but also several new departures.
Four proposals are completely new projects and all aspire to develop into IFG’s after the
next Congress. They all have the potential to develop further and greatly contribute towards
the discipline of human-environment interactions. The new project applications include
African carnivores: impacts on ecosystems and human interactions (Mwebi & Brugal);
Modelling human settlement, flora and fauna dynamics in Europe during the Mid-Pleistocene
Revolution (Rodrigues, Mateos, Hertler and Palombo); Cultural and palaeoenvironmental
changes in Late Glacial to Middle Holocene Europe: gradual or sudden? (Robinson and Riede)
and directly emanates from some of the COST INTIMATE W4 activities, a former INQUA
initiative; What do fossils say about past environments and climates? From past to present
(Experimental Taphonomy) (Fernandez-Jalvo). I will continue to work closely with these
applicants to help facilitate that process if the projects go forward for funding.
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Other applications include one focused on early agriculture in India (Akhilesh et al) and Skills
based funding application to receive training in Quaternary fluvial sediment analysis and
environmental changes (Dembele et al.)
One IFG came forward for consideration, led by Masami Izuho (Tokyo Metropolitan
University), Laurence G. Strauss (University of New Mexico), Ian Buvit (Central Washington
University) and Karisa Kelly (Central Washington University), allowing a wider Eurasian
perspective of human adaptation. This IFG also has one project application for funding
directly associated with it, by Ono, ‘Obsidian exploitation and provenance studies in Eurasian
prehistory: a comparative perspective in diverse palaeoenvironments’
(ix) Plan for the year ahead
The priority for 2014 will be concerned with continuing to build contacts with the wider
community and other organisations with overlapping interests in HAB COMM’s activities and
helping to build up areas for IFG’s and projects for the next inter-congress period.
As we move closer to the INQUA Congress, we will be working closely with the community
to ensure a good representation of sessions, papers and scholars from HAB COMM at the
Congress and in particular showcasing INQUA-funded projects and opportunities for the
group.
Other plans will involve developing strategic plans in consultation with the Advisory Board of
how best to continue to develop the work of HAB COMM, beyond the present intercongress period. To that end, we will be moving into a review period over the next 12
months to establish a more strategic direction for the Commission.
We would also like to explore how best to help develop training and mentoring needs of
scientists working in developing countries and early career researchers. This is an area we
shall be exploring with the Advisory Board. The HAB Comm sponsored training initiative on
publishing at the ECR Wollongong meeting emphasises that need for further training in a
diverse range of areas and we would like to explore whether there may be the option of
running such an event at the next INQUA Congress (e.g. on chronology building).
Additionally, many younger scientists would benefit from mentoring opportunities by more
senior scientists and I would like to explore how this might be best accommodated.
We continue to encourage capacity building with scholars from low GDP countries, young
researchers and ensure a better gender balance in INQUA-associated or related activities
and working with applicants to that effect.
N.J. Whitehouse, 16th February 2014
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