> I'm downvoted, but why?
No idea, I was also downvoted by someone, it's not something I fuss about; you'd have to ask the downvoters.
> You presume something that is not expressed in the article.
It's right there in the pictures, layered strata, rock shelf, carvings on rock collapsed off of the shelf.
It's a pretty basic geological observation.
> I'm simply making the obvious observation - that the river got this low 2000 years ago,
That's a shallow conclusion, geologically speaking .. a leap of "can't think of anything else".
There are many possible reasons strata | water relationships might alter over the course of two thousand years. I've fleshed out one.
> take out the political, environmental slant (out of the article, and your mind)
There you go with the poor reasoning and shoddy conclusions based on projected assumption again.
My background is geophysics and my two comments are related to geology and timescales.