Abstract
The Nile valley accommodates the world's longest river and shaped the development of numerous complex societies, providing a reliable source of water for farming and linking populations to sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean Sea. Its fertile delta lay at the heart of ancient Egyptian civilization, however little is known of its morpho-sedimentary response to basin-wide changes in Holocene hydrology. Here, we present two well-resolved records from the Nile delta (based on ~320 radiocarbon dates) to reconstruct the timing and rhythm of catchment-scale modifications during the past 8000 years. On the orbital timescale, we demonstrate that Nilotic hydrology and sedimentation have responded to low-latitude insolation forcing while, on sub-millennial timescales, many of the major phases of deltaic modification were mediated by climate events linked to El Niño Southern Oscillation-type (ENSO) variability.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 73-84 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Quaternary Science Reviews |
Volume | 45 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 29 Jun 2012 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank two anonymous referees, R. Bonnefille, M. Taieb and E. Van Campo for critical review and comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. Research was funded by ANR Paleomed ( 09-BLAN-0323-01 ), Artemis INSU, PEPS INSHS and PEPS INEE.
Keywords
- Civilizations
- Delta
- ENSO
- Holocene climate change
- ITCZ
- Nile
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Global and Planetary Change
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
- Archaeology
- Archaeology
- Geology