Climate-driven early agricultural origins and development in the Nile Delta, Egypt

Zhao, Xiaoshuang; Sheisha, Hader; Thomas, Ian; Salem, Alaa; Sun, Qianli; Liu, Yan; Mashaly, Hamdy Ahmed; Nian, Xiaomei; Chen, Jing; Finlayson, Brian; Chen, Zhongyuan

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2021.105498

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…3). This unique relationship, which was also reported by our preliminary study at another type archaeological site of Kom El-Khilgan in the NE Nile Delta 30 (Fig. 1a), suggests that Poaceae of >35-40 µm (Fig.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 84%

Herding then farming in the Nile Delta

Zhao

Liu

Thomas

et al. 2022

Commun Earth Environ

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The Nile Delta in Egypt represents a valuable location to study the history of human societal development and agricultural advancement. However, the livelihood patterns of the earliest settlers – whether they were farmers or herders – remains poorly understood. Here we use non-pollen palynomorphs and pollen grains from a sediment core taken at Sais, one of the earliest archaeological sites in the west-central Nile Delta, to investigate the livelihood patterns and transition of early settlers there. We find that animal microfossils (dung and hair) occur in substantial quantities from around 7,000 years ago in our high-resolution-dated non-pollen palynomorphs spectrum, while domesticated cereals emerge in the spectrum around 300 years later. We also identify evidence of fire-enhanced land exploitation after this time. We interpret our microfossil evidence to indicate that the earliest settlers in the Nile Delta were herders and that this then developed into a combination of herding and farming.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 84%

Herding then farming in the Nile Delta

Zhao

Liu

Thomas

et al. 2022

Commun Earth Environ

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“…These data include the Nile deep sea fan marine core MD04-2726 ( Fig. 2 ) ( 6 ), the sediment cores at Burullus Lagoon ( 7 ), Saqqara ( 8 ), and the Faiyum ( 9 ), and the Kom el-Khilgan east delta core KH-1 that documents “severe decline, to the point of local extinction, in cereal pollen, a drastic reduction in dung fungi and other non-pollen palynomorphs” ( 10 ).…”

Section: Old Kingdom Collapsementioning

confidence: 99%

Pyramid building and collapse

Weiss

2022

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…The deltas are fertile, wetlands where agriculture has developed since ancient times. The Nile Delta, for example, a triangle of just over 100 kilometers on each side between Alexandria, Cairo and Port Said, is home to a third of Egypt's population and produces half of its agriculture [8]. Vietnam's fertile Mekong Delta is home to 17 million people and produces half of the country's agricultural output [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

2023

EIMBO

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The river streams meet the sea level either by estuaries in which the ocean flows more or less far, or by deltas, large sedimentary constructions reclaimed from the sea. The coastal dynamics of estuaries and deltas is very dependent on the difference in altitude between sea level and the bottom of the riverbed at its mouth, on the sedimentary loading transported by the river at sea, on the erosive force of the tides and on the marine currents. Among these drivers, two are rapidly changing in the Anthropocene: i) The rise of sea level due to climate change or various digging engineering works, ii) The rate of sediment transported by rivers due to the multiplication of large dams or more land husbandry inside the watershed. This review paper recalls the importance of estuaries and deltas, places with high populations due to the port sites they shelter, the richness of the alluvial lands or the importance of mangroves for natural resources and biodiversity. They indicate the principles that drive their formation and evolution. They show from the literature the important changes at the mouths of major rivers during the Anthropocene. Finally, they detail the evolution of the Medjerda Delta in Tunisia, well known since antiquity. Recent studies show the speed of its construction since the Punic period and the even faster reopening of the Gulf of Utica since the construction of large dams, the recent change of land use in the river basin and the rise in sea level. They conclude with a discussion on this global trend of the invasion of estuaries and deltas by the sea.

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Climate-driven early agricultural origins and development in the Nile Delta, Egypt

Cited by 9 publications

References 62 publications

Herding then farming in the Nile Delta

Herding then farming in the Nile Delta

Pyramid building and collapse

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