Published April 1, 2023 | Version v1
Journal article Open

CFD Investigations of Water Supply and Distribution Systems of Ancient Old and New World Archaeological Sites to Recover Ancient Water Engineering Technologies

  • 1. University of Chicago

Description

New to archaeological studies is the field of paleohydrology characterized by the use of modern hydraulic engineering and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of ancient urban and agricultural water supply and distribution systems. Examples are presented in nine chapters of CFD investigations of old and new world archaeological sites (several of which are World Heritage sites) using FLOW-3D CFD software to bring forward new discoveries revealing the depth of ancient water engineers' knowledge and creativity not previously noted in the archaeological literature. As modern analysis methods reveal technical details of ancient water systems, equivalent ancient technologies exist that were used in the design and operation of ancient water systems, albeit in formats, texts, and origins yet to be discovered. The nine chapters to follow present brief summaries of ancient sites' water systems and the use of CFD and modern hydraulic engineering methods to discover the water engineering knowledge base used by ancient water engineers. Results are new revelations unknown in the current literature of ancient sites. Paleohydrology studies presented serve to add a further dimension to the history of ancient new and old world archaeological sites by bringing forward added details of water engineering projects accomplished by ancient engineers.

Data availability

Additional research findings commentary are given in references.

Files

CFD-Investigations-of-Water-Supply-and-Distribution-Systems.pdf

Files (26.3 MB)

Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.3390/w15071363
Other
oai:uchicago.tind.io:5697

UChicago Information

Division(s)
Social Sciences Division
Department(s)
Anthropology