HR: 16:30h
AN: PP22C-03    [PDF]
TI: Archaeological Evidence for Abrupt Cimate Change: Results from Satellite Imagery Analysis and Subsequent Ground-Truthing in the El-Manzalah Region, Northeast Egyptian Delta
AU: * Parcak, S H
EM: sp313@cam.ac.uk
AF: Cambridge University, Department of Archaeology Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3DZ United Kingdom
AB: The abrupt global climate changes recorded at 8.2, 5.2 and 4.2 ka BP caused a wide range of transformations within ancient societies, including the focus of this study: ancient Egypt . In the case of the climatic changes that occurred at 4.2 ka BP, scholars have debated hotly the events surrounding the "collapse" of the Old Kingdom. Despite such studies into the Old Kingdom's "collapse", there have been insufficient regional settlement pattern studies in Egypt to augment hypotheses concerning the mechanisms behind the cultural transformations that occurred at the end of the Old Kingdom. Utilizing a combination of satellite imagery analysis and subsequent ground-truthing techniques over a broad region in the East Delta, this study aims to reconstruct pharaonic settlement distributions in relation to the changing northeast delta topography, river courses, marshlands, and coastline. Although geo-political and religious factors played varying roles in settlement patterns, this study overlies the economic and environmental components behind the settlement of individual sites and areas. For instance, prior to the formation of the Manzala lagoon, beginning in the 4th century AD, the Mendesian branch of the Nile flowed past Mendes and its satellite, maritime port at Tell Tebilla: As early as the Old Kingdom, Tell Tebilla provided an ideal location for the formation of a town, being well-located to exploit both riverine and maritime transportation routes through trade, and regional floral and faunal resources from hunting, fishing, cultivation and animal husbandry. Key factors such as long-term fluctuations in precipitation, flood levels, and river courses, can affect dramatically the fortunes of individual settlements, areas, and regions, resulting in the decline and abandonment of some sites and the foundation and flourishing of other sites, especially within marginal regions. The Egyptian delta represents an ideal region for studying the impacts of climatic changes through time since it is particularly sensitive to river changes, coastal expansion, and changes within the floral and faunal resource base available to settlements through time. In order to locate ancient settlements in the northeast delta, this study introduced a variety of innovative techniques involving satellite image analysis through Corona, Spot, Landsat and ASTER images, in conjunction with existing archaeological survey data and maps. All known sites were plotted against the satellite imagery data, in order to ascertain whether the newly designed site identification methods worked. The technique had a 95 percent success rate in locating over 100 previously known sites. This technique was next applied to locate new sites and sites believed to be destroyed. In order to verify the accuracy of this new site locational technique, this writer conducted ground-truthing during the summer of 2003, assessing and photographing over 60 new and little known sites in the East Delta. The surface pottery from each site was examined and photographed, and revealed settlements dating to the Old Kingdom, Late Period and Roman Periods. Each known and newly-discovered settlement will be plotted on maps of the eastern Delta, in order to show site disbursement during the time periods represented, especially in relation to geziras, rivers, canals, marshes and the ancient coastline. The paper demonstrates the affects that abrupt climatic changes had on ancient settlement patterns, and reveals how satellite imagery interpretation is applicable to similar studies in other regions.
UR: http://www.deltasinai.com
DE: 3344 Paleoclimatology
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting