Methodology for Reconstructing Prior River Flow

For millennia, the Nile River has played a fundamental role in the rapid growth and expansion of civilization. The intimate connection with this extensive river system has strongly influenced where the Egyptians constructed their cities, necropoleis and temples, in addition to also shaping the landscapes in which they lived, worked, died, and were buried. However, to date, there is still great uncertainty regarding the exact direction that the Nile has migrated in Egypt and whether the Nile had a single course or multiple branches that were simultaneously active in the past. While many efforts to reconstruct the ancient Nile drainage system have been conducted in previous years, they have been primarily confined to small study areas. This has led to the mapping of fragmented sections of the ancient river, however, the position and dynamic nature of the entire river channel system remains undiscovered. Such a poor understanding of the Nile history not only inhibits ability to accurately map archaeological sites, but also to understand their significance within the wider landscape. This project will help initiate a new medium for long-term national and international collaboration between scientists from different backgrounds and raise the profile of American research teams in the international archeological sphere, geospatial and environmental sciences. This research will also offer an opportunity for scientific engagement and cultural enrichment for college students based in the USA.

This project will consist in a three-year study with international colleagues to leverage the use of interdisciplinary approaches, including multisensor remote sensing together with geographical information system (GIS) modeling, historical, archeological, geomorphological, and geophysical field surveys, to reconstruct a complete map of the Nile River and many of its now defunct branches. The mapping of this ancient water system will facilitate the detection of previously undocumented sites and develop the geochronological framework for the area under investigation. Discovering the ancient Nile and having a more refined idea of where settlements were possibly located in relation to it can drastically improve our cultural heritage conservation measures and raise awareness of these sites for modern development planning. From a societal perspective, such research is important because of the wide presence of ancient sites in the proximity of unmapped paleo-river systems – both in the USA and globally – and the large human population near these sites that could affect their preservation or annihilation. The broader impacts of this project lie in the successful demonstration of the adopted methodological framework in the Nile Valley, which will allow for similar applications around other river basins worldwide and could be beneficial in protecting sites.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.