A Lecture by Professor Pavel Tarasov (Freie Universität Berlin) at Al-Farabi KazNU

On February 6, 2026, Professor Pavel Tarasov will deliver a lecture at the Faculty of History of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. Professor Tarasov is a leading specialist in paleoecology and Quaternary geography and a professor at Freie Universität Berlin (Germany).

Lecture title:
“Paleoenvironment and Long-Term Cultural Changes of Hunter-Gatherers in Northern Eurasia: What Do We Know and What Do We Want to Know?”

The lecture will focus on current views of environmental dynamics in Northern Eurasia during the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene, as well as the impact of climatic and environmental changes on the development of hunter-gatherer cultures. Special attention will be given to interdisciplinary approaches that integrate data from palynology, geoarchaeology, paleoclimatology, and archaeology.

The lecture will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students, PhD candidates, faculty members, and anyone interested in paleoecology, archaeology, climate history, and the cultural evolution of ancient populations of Eurasia.

Date: February 6, 2026, 11:00
Venue: Room 4-1, Faculty of History, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Language: Russian (slides in English; questions in English are possible)

About the Lecturer

Pavel Tarasov is a graduate of the Faculty of Geography at Lomonosov Moscow State University, where he defended his PhD dissertation in 1992 on pollen-based reconstructions of vegetation and climate in the steppe zone of Kazakhstan. In 2007, he defended his Doctor habilitatus dissertation at the Faculty of Earth Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin.

At various times, Professor Tarasov has been a research fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and a recipient of the prestigious Heisenberg Fellowship of the German Research Foundation (DFG). He has served as a visiting professor and researcher at leading universities in Europe, Canada, and Japan.

Professor Tarasov is the author and co-author of more than 200 scientific publications (Web of Science: h-index 54; Scopus: h-index 67), including articles in top-ranked journals such as Nature Ecology & Evolution, Science, Science Advances, Quaternary Science Reviews, Climate of the Past, and others. He is actively involved in supervising bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD theses and is the coordinator of the Erasmus+ program at the Faculty of Earth Sciences.