Every PalNews Issue now available online!

Bailey Weiss, ESI

PalNews is an important part of the PSSA. The very first PalNews issue came out in 1977 and over the last 46 years there have been a total of 81 issues of the biannual newsletter. These cover all aspects of palaeontology in southern Africa. From fieldtrips to lab news, from conference attendances to information on the latest research from the community.

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PalNews Volume 1 Issue 1 included a short biography of the first PSSA president, the late Charles K. Brain and a report on the Karoo Palaeontology Symposium (the forerunner to what is now the PSSA Biennial conference), amongst other news articles.

One of the important aspects I wanted to incorporate into the new website design was keeping the history of the PSSA intact and this included having a place to store all of the previous PalNews issues. I am happy to report that all 81 issues of the PalNews are now available online! All as searchable PDFs downloadable from the website. Volumes 1-19 are archived in zip folders, while volumes 20-23 are individually uploaded and can be accessed by clicking on their front covers.

During the scanning of the old printed issues, I had the pleasure of reading a lot of interesting articles. These included some interesting stories about fieldwork and news stories over the last almost half a century of this newsletter. These articles have also shown how far we've come as a community in many aspects of palaeontology in terms of the actual science, the work culture, and the diversity of people in this field. I would like to from time to time post some of the more interesting articles that I feel are still interesting and haven't aged as badly as some others. So keep an eye on PalBlog for these articles over the next few months and please do check out the PalNews Archive for a trip down memory (for some of us, history) lane!

First PalNews, issued in September 1977

Most recent (at time of this Blog) PalNews Vol 23 (2), issued in October 2023

Please contact me if you notice any errors or have comments on previous issues in the archive. 

For contributions to the next issue of PalNews please contact the editor Caitlin Rabe.