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Environmental change in deltaic settings and the emergence of civilisation
No full textDuring the mid-Holocene, some of the world's first large-scale complex societies came into being within the lower and middle reaches of a number of large river systems. Around this time, as global sea-level stabilised, the hosting fluvial environments of Lower Mesopotamia, the Nile Delta and the North China Plain were evolving from spatially varied landscapes dominated by swampy marshland, to better-drained, more uniform floodplain environments. It is necessary to consider whether such environmental changes could have guided aspects of sociocultural evolution in these settingsIn the Nile Delta, the setting for which most data are available, these palaeolandscape changes are comprehensively mapped through the construction of a four-dimensional aggradation model of the Holocene alluvial plain. Development of this model takes place within the context of a full reinterpretation of the Upper Quaternary stratigraphy of the Nile Delta, which is itself further informed by substantial programmes of fieldwork in the western delta. The environmental changes were forced by a decrease in the rate of relative sea-level rise within the context of decreased discharge and sediment-supply due to regional climate change.A geoarchaeological model links these changes in the landscape to sociocultural developments taking place in Egypt between 5500 and 2500 BC. Increased adoption of agricultural practices in the delta was stimulated by a decrease in the primary productivity of the landscape, which then led to population growth and shifts in settlement styles. The emergence of the first Egyptian capital of Memphis at the delta apex can also be seen as having been facilitated by changes in the palaeogeography of the fluvio-deltaic environment. Such linkages between the changing deltaic landscapes and social change are crucial in understanding the formation of the Ancient Egyptian State (c. 3100 BC), which involved increased involvement of regional elites using the delta as both an agricultural resource and trade route
Palaeoenvironments of the northwest Nile Delta: the ancient landscape context of Kom al-Ahmer and Kom Wasit
No full textData for: The fluvial evolution of the Holocene Nile Delta
No full textLocations and stratigraphic horizons of shallow boreholes drilled within the fluvial zone of the Nile Delta, focussing on the uppermost Quaternary sequence. Stratigraphic nomenclature follows that proposed by Pennington et al. (2017), "The fluvial evolution of the Holocene Nile Delta", QSR.</span
Landscape change in the Nile Delta during the fourth millennium BC: a new perspective on the Egyptian Predynastic and Protodynastic periods
Full text linkThe role environmental change may have played at the dawn of Egyptian history has been overlooked in comparison with other periods. Natural landscape changes taking place in the Nile Delta are argued here to have been a facilitating factor allowing, and possibly stimulating, socioeconomic changes leading to the “Lower Egyptian – Naqada Transition” (LE-NT, c. 3350 BC). In this context the LE-NT may be understood in terms of regional elites using newly agrarian delta lands as an agricultural resource and trade route, with the emerging capital, Memphis, ideally situated. We argue (almost counter-intuitively) that a natural reduction in overall landscape productivity led to agricultural intensification through a positive feedback loop. This may have laid the foundations for the emergence of a more unified Egyptian state beginning c. 3100 BC. Through this analysis we argue for the incorporation of the environment as an integral component of change narratives of Predynastic Egypt
Development of the Memphite floodplain: landscape and settlement symbiosis in the Egyptian capital zone
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Aridification of the Egyptian Sahara 5000–4000 cal BP revealed from x-ray fluorescence analysis of Nile Delta sediments at Kom al-Ahmer/Kom Wasit
No full textElemental XRF analysis carried out on an 8m long core from the Nile Delta reveals a gradual increase in the Ca/Ti ratio between 5000–4000 cal BP which is linked to the progressive development of hyper-aridity in this region. The increase results from elevated flux of aeolian material entering the Nile river system from calcareous source rock geologies in the dryer Egyptian Sahara. The most major increase in hyper-aridity occurs around 4000 cal BP. Such a perspective suggests a locally abrupt, regionally time-transgressive inception of hyper-aridity in this region at the end of the African Humid Period. After this time, reorganisation of wind circulation meant that less Saharan-derived aeolian material entered the Nile Valley, and the contribution of aeolian material in the Nile’s sedimentary signal was also dwarfed by an increase in Blue Nile sedimentary flux. Chronological control is provided by two radiocarbon dates and the top and bottom of a well-constrained pottery horizon that dates from the period of occupation of two nearby archaeological sites: Kom al-Ahmer and Kom Wasit.</p
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