The ancient Egyptians are credited for being a highly advanced civilization that built the pyramids, created Hieroglyphics and established an irrigation system using the Nile. The artifacts left behind enable researchers to learn more about the civilization and the world that they lived in. Researchers are now studying an ancient artifact from early Egypt that recorded animals. The artifact allows researchers to uncover more information about the Nile ecosystem of the past.
Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, experts found that the ancient Egyptians kept records of animals that reveal a significant amount about extinction, showing that the Nile Valley had a weak ecosystem.
The growth of human population and climate change are the main factors to blame for the extinction of many large mammals. The study found that there were 37 large-bodied mammal species in Egypt approximately six millennia ago. Currently, only eight species remain.
"What was once a rich and diverse mammalian community is very different now," says study author Justin Yeakelin. According to ancient artifacts, lions, elephants, oryx, hartebeests and giraffes used to roam along the Nile in the past.
The researchers used archaeological and paleontological evidence from the 1990s as well as historical records to reveal five instances where the Nile Valley saw significant changes with its ecosystem in the past 6,000 years. Once the ecosystem became less varied, single species that became extinct greatly impacted the entire region.
"This may be just one example of a larger pattern," Yeakel says. "We see a lot of ecosystems today in which a change in one species produces a big shift in how the ecosystem functions, and that might be a modern phenomenon. We don't tend to think about what the system was like 10,000 years ago."
The growth of human populations was another important factor that led to animal extinction in the Nile Valley. Many of the animal extinctions were parallel to the environmental changes that caused the climate to become hotter and drier.
The researchers concluded that the extinctions made the ecosystem unstable over time. Studying the impact climate change had over the Nile ecosystem allows researchers to understand more about the climate and our ecosystems today.
