The early Paleogene was an epoch with generally much higher mean global temperatures and concentrations of greenhouse gasses than today. Superimposed on the general warm early Paleogene climate are several sudden transient (10-100 kyr scale) and extreme climatic events known as hyperthermals, which are characterized by a.o. rapid changes in surface and deep-sea temperatures, ocean circulation patterns, surface ocean acidification, precipitation and productivity. This makes the early Paleogene an extremely interesting period, as it likely represents the most recent and best analogue for the high CO2 greenhouse the world is trending toward. Additionally, most of the modern vertebrates have their origin and begin to diversify during the early Paleogene, including the iconic APP mammal taxa: Artiodactyls (even-toed ungulates, e.g. sheep, goats), Perissodactyls (odd- toed ungulates, e.g. horses, zebras) and Primates that appear almost simultaneously in all three Northern hemisphere continents around the Paleocene-Eocene boundary. The initial objective of this dissertation was to join and support the PalEurAfrica project, funded by Belgian Science Policy Office, which aimed to further evaluate the hypothesis that modern vertebrates and especially the APP taxa likely originated during the late Paleocene in tropical habitats farther south. These hypotheses unfortunately remain largely untested due to the lack of early Paleogene fossil data from Africa, especially from Sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, the Paleogene fossiliferous localities of western central Africa (i.e. Angola and Congo) are a critical link in understanding the wider Cenozoic African faunal dynamics. The idea was to focus on the dinoflagellate cyst assemblages of selected localities with the aim of carrying out detailed biostratigraphic and paleoecological investigations in order to construct a robust stratigraphic and paleoecological framework to evaluate the vertebrate and invertebrate occurrences at each of these sites. The Landana locality in the ...