The Nile is one of the largest rivers in the world. It played a significant role in ancient Egyptian life. However, less information is available on its response to climate change during the Holocene.
Scientists from the University of Southampton have presented a framework to discover how the Egyptian Nile evolved. They demonstrated how climatic and environmental changes have shaped the landscape of the Egyptian Nile Valley over the past 11,500 years, including the civilization of ancient Egypt.
The study reveals a major shift in the Nile that occurred around four thousand years ago. After that shift, the floodplain in the Nile Valley around Luxor greatly expanded.
According to scientists, this shift prompted the success of the ancient Egyptian agricultural economy at points between the Old and New Kingdom periods.
Dr Benjamin Pennington, a co-author on the paper from the University of Southampton, said: “The expansion of the floodplain will have greatly enlarged the area of arable land in the Nile Valley near Luxor (ancient Thebes) and improved the fertility of the soil by regularly depositing fertile silts.”
“While no specific causal links can be inferred between this shift and any contemporaneous social developments, the changes in the landscape are nonetheless an important factor that needs to be considered when discussing the trajectory of Ancient Egyptian culture.”
According to the study, the position of famous historical buildings like the Karnak Temple and settlement patterns may have been impacted by changes in the behavior and environment of the Nile.
An international team comprising many archaeologists and geographers from the University of Southampton conducted the research under the direction of Dr. Angus Graham of Uppsala University in Sweden.
Dominic Barker, another co-author from the University of Southampton, explained how the work was achieved: “We drilled 81 boreholes, many by hand, across the whole Nile Valley near Luxor—a genuine first for Egypt. Using geological information contained within the cores and dating the sediments using a technique called Optically Stimulated Luminescence, we were able to piece together the evolution of the riverine landscape.”
Scientists discovered that the Nile underwent considerable valley incision, or the river cutting down into its bed, between 11,500 and 4,000 years ago. This resulted in deep channels and a restricted flood plain that might have caused floods to become more noticeable and intense.
These flood dynamics would have been in effect between the Old Kingdom (the “age of the pyramids”) and the Middle Kingdom of ancient Egypt, as well as the Epipalaeolithic period (a time of hunter-gatherer tribes).
The Nile suddenly shifted around 4,000 years ago, causing a fast floodplain aggradation. The river started dumping massive amounts of sediment, which raised the valley level. As a result, the floodplain became more stable and significant.
During this period, the river’s characteristics also gradually changed from a dynamic system of braided, meandering channels to fewer, more stable ones. Only about two thousand years ago did the Nile establish itself as the single-channel Nile we know today.
Scientists noted, “The major shift in the Nile’s behavior was likely caused by a reduced volume of water flowing through the river and an increase in fine sediment supply. This was driven by the aridification of the Nile basin, with the ‘Green Sahara’ of the African Humid Period transforming into the present-day hyper-arid Sahara Desert. This shift in regional climate may have further combined with changing human impacts on the land to make the soil more prone to erosion.”
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Journal Reference:
- Peeters, J., Graham, A., Toonen, W.H.J. et al. Shift away from Nile incision at Luxor ~4,000 years ago impacted ancient Egyptian landscapes. Nature Geoscience. (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-024-01451-z