Rise of the Palaeoecology of Africa series

The Palaeoecology of Africa series was founded by E.M. van Zinderen Bakker, a biologist and palynologist who emigrated from Europe to South Africa. Ever since its origin during the nineteen-sixties, it gave a reflection of the history and development of palaeoscience in connection with the African continent and played a role in promoting international collaboration with multidisciplinary reports, conference proceedings and other papers in this field. Palaeoecology of Africa (PoA) had its humble origins in the late nineteen-fifties and early sixties when van Zinderen Bakker, a Dutch naturalist who immigrated to South Africa in 1947 started lecturing at the University of the Orange Free State in Bloemfontein. He formed the Palynological Research Unit that was sponsored by the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, and by the 1950’s he was already involved in some of the first palynogical research projects in Africa, including modern pollen surveys in Southern Africa and analysis of the hominin-bearing spring deposits of Florisbad near Bloemfontein. PoA started as the eight soft-cover reports on pollen analysis entitled ‘Palynology of Africa’ in which van Zinderen Bakker reported on research news and activities in palynology and related aspects of palaeosciences in Africa covering the period of 1950–1963.