Methodology for Reconstructing Prior River Flow

几千年来，尼罗河在人类文明的快速发展和扩张中发挥了重要作用。与这一广阔河流系统的密切联系强烈地影响了埃及人建造城市、墓地和寺庙的地点，同时也塑造了他们生活、工作、死亡和埋葬的景观。然而，到目前为止，关于尼罗河在埃及境内迁移的确切方向，以及尼罗河在过去是单一河道还是同时活跃的多个分支，仍然存在很大的不确定性。虽然在前几年进行了许多重建古尼罗河排水系统的努力，但它们主要局限于小范围的研究区域。这导致了对古河流碎片部分的测绘，然而，整个河道系统的位置和动态性质仍未被发现。对尼罗河历史的了解如此贫乏，不仅限制了准确绘制考古遗址的能力，而且也限制了人们了解它们在更广阔景观中的意义。该项目将有助于为不同背景的科学家之间的长期国内和国际合作开创一种新的媒介，并提高美国研究团队在国际考古领域、地理空间和环境科学领域的形象。这项研究也将为在美国的大学生提供科学参与和文化丰富的机会。该项目将与国际同事进行为期三年的研究，利用跨学科方法，包括多传感器遥感与地理信息系统（GIS）建模、历史、考古、地貌学和地球物理实地调查，重建尼罗河及其许多现已不复存在的分支的完整地图。绘制这一古老水系的地图将有助于发现以前没有记录的遗址，并为正在调查的地区制定地质年代框架。发现古尼罗河并更精确地了解与之相关的定居点可能位于何处，可以极大地改善我们的文化遗产保护措施，并提高对这些遗址的认识，以促进现代发展规划。从社会的角度来看，这样的研究是很重要的，因为在美国和全球范围内，在未绘制的古河流系统附近广泛存在着古代遗址，而且这些遗址附近的大量人口可能会影响它们的保存或灭绝。该项目的更广泛影响在于在尼罗河谷成功地示范了所采用的方法框架，这将允许在全世界其他河流流域进行类似的应用，并可能有利于保护遗址。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.