INQUA Executive

Thijs van Kolfschoten studied Geology and Biology and obtained his PhD in Palaeontology at the Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Utrecht (The Netherlands). After a research position at the Institute of Palaeontology, University of Bonn (Germany) he moved to Leiden University (The Netherlands) where he is working as Professor in Palaeozoology and Quaternary Biostratigraphy at the Faculty of Archaeology.

His main fields of interest are Quaternary mammals, biostratigraphy, palaeoecology and taphonomy. His palaeontological research focuses on continental deposits with an age that ranges from the Early Pleistocene until the early Holocene. A major research project is the study of the mammalian vertebrate fossils from a sequence exposed at Schöningen (Germany); a sequence that plays an important role in the debate on the late Middle Pleistocene climatic and faunal history. The Palaeolithic sites of Schöningen yielded a large amount of mammalian remains with features that indicate exploitation by Lower Palaeolithic hominins. The study of these features is also part of the current research project.

During the past decade, changes in Late Pleistocene and early Holocene ecosystems in Europe north of the Alps have been investigated in close collaboration with Russian colleagues; past projects are: The evolution of the mammalian fauna and flora in Western, Central and Eastern Europe during the Pleistocene – Holocene transition (25 - 10 kyr B.P.) combining well-dated flora and fauna data and The Collapse of the Mammoth Steppe ecosystem (COMSEC) investigating the disintegration of the Mammoth Steppe ecosystem at the level of faunal assemblages as well as at species level. Currently, studies on the Late Pleistocene faunal evolution focus on eastern Siberia.

Thijs was President of the INQUA Subcommission (now Section) on European Stratigraphy (SEQS) from 1995 to 2003, and he was President of INQUA Netherlands from 1999 to 2008 when he was the national Delegate representative at the INQUA International Council meetings in Durham (1999), Reno (2003) and Cairns (2007). He has been regional Editor (Europe) of Quaternary International from 2003 to 2015. In addition, he has been a member of SACCOM from 2003 to present, and Secretary of SACCOM from 2011 to 2015. He was member of the steering-committee of APEX (Arctic Palaeoclimate and its Extremes), which forms an umbrella programme for European Arctic palaeoclimate research. He was secretary of the IUGS Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, member of the scientific advisory board of Senckenberg Research Institute (Frankfurt, Germany) and the Centre of Archaeological Sciences (Leuven, Belgium).

Currently, Thijs van Kolfschoten is the director of a well-equipped laboratory for palaeozoological and archaeozoological studies at the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University and head of the Bioarchaeology Research Group.

Freek Busschers is a scientist and project manager at the Department of Geomodelling at TNO - Geological Survey of the Netherlands. Freek ’s research mainly focusses on the development of the southern North Sea Basin during the Quaternary. Looking for fossils as a young boy during holidays in France initiated his interest in the prehistory from a very early age. Freek finished his PhD on the Middle and Late Pleistocene development of the Rhine-Meuse system at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2008 and worked at TNO - Geological Survey of the Netherlands ever since. He currently works on the reconstruction and dating of the now buried southern North Sea Basin paleo landscapes by using the Survey’s extensive borehole and sediment provenance databases and by applying a range of dating techniques such as luminescence dating and biostratigraphy. Freek is an active INQUA member and regards the organisation essential for connecting different Quaternary groups and disciplines all over the world. He was secretary of INQUA-SACCOM since the Nagoya congress in 2015.

Laura Sadori is an Italian palynologist and archaeobotanist.

She carries out palaeoecological studies, devoting herself to researches aimed to palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic reconstructions in the Mediterranean basin. She aims to evaluate the degree of human impact and of the changes induced by climate.

She cooperates with archaeologists, geologists and architects in the study of a number of Italian and foreign historical and prehistorical sites.

Lynne Quick is a Senior Research Fellow associated with the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience at Nelson Mandela University (NMU) in South Africa. She is a palynologist with interests in palaeoecology and palaeoclimatology. She is working on the development of new palaeoenvironmental records in southern Africa and has a key focus on the vegetation history and past climate dynamics of the Cape Floristic Region. She has spent the last year establishing a state-of-the-art palaeobotanical laboratory at NMU and hopes that through her leadership, this facility will produce new, innovative, palynological research.

Lynne is the President of Southern African Society for Quaternary Research (SASQUA), a member of the South African National Committee for INQUA and a member of the scientific steering committee of the AFQUA (African Quaternary: Environments, Ecology and Humans) initiative.

Allan Ashworth is a researcher and a teacher in paleoecology at North Dakota State University who specializes in insects and their response to climate change.  He was educated at the University of Birmingham, UK, where he was a student of Quaternary researchers Russell Coope and Fred Shotton.  He has worked on Quaternary projects in several countries. Currently, he is studying full-glacial insect assemblages from the Lake Region of Southern Chile and from the Olympic Peninsula, U.S.A.  

Additionally, he works on Miocene-aged fossiliferous deposits in Antarctica where modern organisms evolved adaptations to cold earlier than they did in the northern hemisphere.  He is also collaborating with a large group of scientists from around the world to develop the Neotoma Paleoecology Database. His research is featured in the film ‘Ice People’, the NOVA documentary ‘Secrets Beneath The Ice’ and in Science magazine. Fossil discoveries made in Antarctica are featured in articles in National Geographic and in the world press, and are recognized in the New Zealand Geographic Board citation for the Ashworth Glacier.  

He has previously served as the Chair of the USNC INQUA and as a Vice-President of INQUA from 2007-2011.

View Allan's home page.