Thijs van Kolfschoten
Leiden University
Faculty of Archaeology
P.O. Box 9515
Leiden 2300 RA
The Netherlands

Thijs van Kolfschoten studied Geology and Biology and obtained his Ph.D. 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 now Professor in Palaeozoology and Quaternary Biostratigraphy at the Faculty of Archaeology.

His main fields of interest are Quaternary mammals, biostratigraphy and palaeoecology. His palaeontological research focuses on continental deposits with an age that ranges from the Early Pleistocene until the early Holocene. Early Pleistocene faunas under study are e.g. new discovered mammalian assemblage from the Netherlands (Tegelen-Maalbeek and Zuurland).

A major research project is the study of the mammalian vertebrate fossils from a sequence exposed at Schöningen (Germany); a sequence that is important in the debate on the late Middle Pleistocene climatic and faunal history. Changes in Late Pleistocene and early Holocene ecosystems in the northern latitudes in Eurasia are investigated in close collaboration with Russian colleagues in a recent project entitled: The Collapse of the Mammoth Steppe ecosystem (COMSEC).

Van Kolfschoten is secretary of the IUGS Subcommission Quaternary stratigraphy, Vice-president of the INQUA committee on Stratigraphy and Chronology and a.o. regional editor (Europe) of Quaternary International, member of the editorial board of Quaternaire and member of the steering-committee of APEX (Arctic Palaeoclimate and its Extremes) that forms an umbrella programme for European Arctic palaeoclimate research. Van Kolfschoten is in addition member of the scientific advisory board of Senckenberg Research Institute (Frankfurt, Germany) and the Centre of Archaeological Sciences (Leuven, Belgium).

Van Kolfschoten is the director of a well equipped laboratory for palaeozoological and archaeozoological studies at the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University.