Methodology for Reconstructing Prior River Flow

几千年来，尼罗河在文明的快速发展和扩张中发挥了重要作用。与这个广阔的河流系统的密切联系强烈地影响了埃及人建造城市、墓地和寺庙的地方，此外还塑造了他们生活、工作、死亡和埋葬的景观。然而，到目前为止，尼罗河在埃及的确切方向仍然存在很大的不确定性，尼罗河是只有一条航道，还是过去同时活跃的多个支流。虽然在前几年进行了许多重建古尼罗河排水系统的努力，但这些努力主要局限于较小的研究区域。这导致了古河流支离破碎的部分的测绘，然而，整个河道系统的位置和动态性质仍然没有被发现。对尼罗河历史的了解如此之差，不仅限制了准确绘制考古遗址地图的能力，也阻碍了在更广泛的景观中理解它们的意义。该项目将有助于为来自不同背景的科学家之间的长期国家和国际合作提供一种新的媒介，并提高美国研究团队在国际考古领域、地球空间和环境科学中的形象。这项研究还将为美国的大学生提供一个参与科学和丰富文化的机会。该项目将与国际同行进行为期三年的研究，利用跨学科方法，包括多传感器遥感和地理信息系统(GIS)建模、历史、考古、地貌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支流的完整地图。绘制这一古老水系的地图将有助于发现以前未记录在案的遗址，并为调查区域建立地质年代学框架。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，可以极大地改进我们的文化遗产保护措施，并提高人们对这些遗址的认识，以便进行现代发展规划。从社会的角度来看，这样的研究很重要，因为在美国和全球，在未绘制地图的古河流系统附近广泛存在着古代遗址，而且这些遗址附近有大量的人类人口，这可能会影响它们的保护或灭绝。该项目更广泛的影响在于在尼罗河流域成功展示了所采用的方法框架，这将允许在世界各地的其他河流流域周围进行类似的应用，并可能有助于保护遗址。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.