Climate stability and societal decline on the margins of the Byzantine empire in the Negev Desert (original) (raw)
Related papers
This study presents a comprehensive paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the Byzantine and Early Islamic western Negev Desert communities during the 4th-8th centuries CE. The study is based on 33 pollen samples and hundreds of charcoal remains that were recovered from the villages of Shivta and Nitzana. The results demonstrate that during the 5-6th centuries CE flourishing desert agricultural communities existed on the periphery of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire). The presence of diverse fruit-tree horticulture is revealed by both pollen and charcoal remains (grape, fig, olive, carob, almond/apricot, pomegranate, date palm and the exotic hazelnut). The rich botanical assemblages also provide evidence of the cultivation by irrigation of conifers and other Mediterranean trees common to the more humid Mediterranean vegetation zone, including the prestigious cedar of Lebanon. The palynological reconstruction of an ornamental garden at Shivta indicates the ability to invest water and labor, not only for horticultural and construction purposes, but also for ornamental greenery. We therefore suggest that the Byzantine Negev Desert community was a luxury society in contrast to societies living in a mode of survival in challenging desert environments. During the Early Islamic period (since the second half of the 7th century CE), our data show a dramatic decline in fruit-tree horticulture coupled with indicators signifying overexploitation for fuel of the nearby natural woody desert environment. Hence, we claim that in addition to previous possible explanations for the demise of the Negev Byzantine communities (plague pandemic, climate change, the Muslim conquest), overexploitation of the natural vegetation should also be taken into account. This study therefore helps address historical questions that are also pertinent to the modern era, regarding the existence of flourishing societies in challenging environments, overexploitation of the natural environment, and neglect of sustainability.
Quaternary International, 2020
This study presents a comprehensive paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the Byzantine and Early Islamic western Negev Desert communities during the 4th-8th centuries CE. The study is based on 33 pollen samples and hundreds of charcoal remains that were recovered from the villages of Shivta and Nitzana. The results demonstrate that during the 5-6th centuries CE flourishing desert agricultural communities existed on the periphery of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire). The presence of diverse fruit-tree horticulture is revealed by both pollen and charcoal remains (grape, fig, olive, carob, almond/apricot, pomegranate, date palm and the exotic hazelnut). The rich botanical assemblages also provide evidence of the cultivation by irrigation of conifers and other Mediterranean trees common to the more humid Mediterranean vegetation zone, including the prestigious cedar of Lebanon. The palynological reconstruction of an ornamental garden at Shivta indicates the ability to invest water and labor, not only for horticultural and construction purposes, but also for ornamental greenery. We therefore suggest that the Byzantine Negev Desert community was a luxury society in contrast to societies living in a mode of survival in challenging desert environments. During the Early Islamic period (since the second half of the 7th century CE), our data show a dramatic decline in fruit-tree horticulture coupled with indicators signifying overexploitation for fuel of the nearby natural woody desert environment. Hence, we claim that in addition to previous possible explanations for the demise of the Negev Byzantine communities (plague pandemic, climate change, the Muslim conquest), overexploitation of the natural vegetation should also be taken into account. This study therefore helps address historical questions that are also pertinent to the modern era, regarding the existence of flourishing societies in challenging environments, overexploitation of the natural environment, and neglect of sustainability.
Thousands of ancient terraces in the valleys of the Negev desert show that agriculture was conducted here in the past, based on the utilization of runoff and floodwater from local rainfall. A comprehensive collation and mapping is presented of the geographic distribution of such farming remains in the northern, central and southern Negev. The time range of these remains is also evaluated in detail with the inclusion of new data from the Neolithic to the present. Farming was and is conducted on a seasonal or annual timescale. However, proxy palaeoclimatic indicators in the southern Levant do not have such resolution. How do the ancient agricultural remains relate to climate? How do we define climate in order to make comparisons through time? How dry is dry? The conventional Köppen and Thornthwaite climatic classifications are cumbersome in both spatial and time-series analysis. This article presents for the first time the spatial positions of the climate zones in southern Israel based on the innovative P/PET climatic classification approach (P ¼ annual precipitation; PET ¼ annual potential evapotranspiration). Instrumental data from 13 meteorological stations were used for the required calculations and mapping. The decade 1990e2000 was selected, because of extreme climatic variations in this period, including the cold and wettest year ever recorded, 1991e92, as well as the warm and severe drought year 1998e99. Main conclusions are as follows: 1. The majority of remains of ancient runoff/floodwater farming are located south of Beer Sheva in the arid zone. 2. Only a few sites are situated in the hyper-arid zone in the southern Negev. 3. The southern and eastern borders of the ancient agricultural region in the central Negev coincide with the average decadal climatic boundary between the arid and hyper-arid zone (P/ PET ¼ 0.05). 4. The extremely wet year 1991e92 did not cause a significant displacement southward in the position of the arid and hyper-arid zones. Most runoff-farming areas remained within the arid zone. However, north of Beer Sheva the climatic zones shifted dramatically, as the humid zone, usually not extant in the southern Levant, and the sub-humid zone, moved into southern Israel. 5. The severe drought year 1998e99, on the other hand, caused a dramatic displacement northward of all climate zones. The boundary between the arid zone and hyper-arid zone (P/PET ¼ 0.05) moved north of Beer Sheva and west of Arad. Most runoff/floodwater farming areas were situated in the hyper-arid zone. 6. An area with terraced valleys beyond the Negev in the southern foothills near Hebron experienced an arid climate in 1998/99, instead of average semi-arid conditions. This underlines the rational of runoff capture for drought mitigation in the semi-arid zone. 7. The investigation sets a modern standard of defined climate zones in the Negev and their shifts in wet and drought years as a basis for comparison with past climatic changes in relation to ancient agricultural remains.
Blame it on the goats? Desertification in the Near East during the Holocene
The degree to which desertification during the Holocene resulted from climatic deterioration or alternatively from overgrazing has puzzled Quaternary scientists in many arid regions of the world. In the research reported upon here, a multidisciplinary investigation of a 5-m deep, ~11,000-year-old sediment column excavated in a dry lake bed in southern Jordan revealed an early interval in which proxies of plant cover and sheep/goat stocking rates co-varied directly with climatic cycles. Beginning ~5.6 kcal BP, however, this pattern changed with fecal spherulite and phytolith densities failing to co-vary and with spherulites often greatly exceeding phytolith densities, which we suggest is indicative of overgrazing. Moreover, the lack of agreement between the high phytolith densities and other indicators of a desert landscape (i.e. geomorphic and palynologic) suggests that phytolith densities were inflated by fodder subsidies and as such are not entirely reflective of plant cover for this later interval. Given the co-incidental emergence of overgrazing with archaeological evidence for a marked rise in regional population, emergence of widespread trade, and expansion of the Timnian pastoral complex during Chalcolithic-early Bronze times, we argue that desertification was a consequence of socioeconomic factors (e.g. higher stocking rates) associated with a shift from a subsistence to a market economy. In addition, we contend that the signature lithic artifact variety (tabular scraper) that appeared in great abundance during this period was directly tied to the emergent market economy and its secondary products (wool) in having been used to shear sheep. Moreover, in that these changes took place largely concurrent with local and regionally recognized evidence of a moist interval, we conclude that the mid-to late-Holocene desertification of the southern Levant was induced more by anthropogenic than climatic factors.
The 'Byzantine Bio-Archaeology Research Program of the Negev' (BYBAN), launched in 2015, aims to examine the underlying causes for the emergence, long-term persistence and ultimate collapse of Byzantine settlement in the Negev ). In order to model potential effects of climate change, natural disaster and pivotal historical events on the dynamics of settlement development and decline at a number of Byzantine-period sites, BYBAN combines comprehensive data retrieval techniques in the investigation of relict field systems, rubbish mounds and the living floors of residential structures. The Byzantines of the fourth to seventh centuries AD populated the arid, marginal environment of the Negev (<200mm annual rainfall) by developing an urban infrastructure and a productive agricultural hinterland on a scale unmatched in the region before the latter half of the twentieth century. The florescence of the Negev desert in the Byzantine period has puzzled archaeologists, historians and geographers since the early nineteenth century
Royal Society Open Science, 2018
It is widely believed that Byzantine agriculture in the Negev Desert (fourth to seventh century Common Era; CE), with widespread construction of terraces and dams, altered local landscapes. However, no direct evidence in archaeological sites yet exists to test this assumption. We uncovered large amounts of small mammalian remains (rodents and insectivores) within agricultural installations built near fields, providing a new line of evidence for reconstructing anthropogenic impact on local habitats. Abandonment layers furnished high abundances of remains, whereas much smaller numbers were retrieved from the period of human use of the structures. Digestion marks are present in low frequencies (20% of long bones and teeth), with a light degree of impact, which indicate the role of owls (e.g. Tyto alba) as the principal means of accumulation. The most common taxa—gerbils (Gerbillus spp.) and jirds (Meriones spp.)—occur in nearly equal frequencies, which do not correspond with any modern Negev communities, where gerbils predominate in sandy low-precipitation environments and jirds in loessial, higher-precipitation ones. Although low-level climate change cannot be ruled out, the results suggest that Byzantine agriculture allowed jirds to colonize sandy anthropogenic habitats with other gerbilids and commensal mice and rats.
Journal of Arid Environments, 2019
The rise and fall of desert agriculture in the southern Levant has been debated among scholars for the last 200 years, in the chronological, the socio-political and the environmental context. Based on c. 31 OSL ages of sediments from agricultural terraces in various sites in the Negev Highlands, the main phase of ancient desert agriculture was dated to between the 3 rd-4th centuries CE and the 10 th-11th centuries CE (Avni et al., 2013). Within this longue durée process of agricultural activities, no significant environmental or climatic change was observed coinciding with the Byzantine-Islamic transition in the 7th century CE. Our research, which focused on the natural processes that influenced the rise and fall of the Negev desert agriculture, found that the agricultural installations were sustainable for at least 700 years and parts of these agricultural constructions are still in use today. This long period of usage is a clear indication of their robust design and their good adaptation to the desert environment, despite possible short-term climatic fluctuations. However, continuous flooding, gulling, soil erosion and siltation required constant maintenance of agricultural systems by the local farmers. In addition, the political and economic changes that followed the Byzantine-Islamic transition triggered a gradual decrease in the economic value of the products of desert agriculture, followed by a disruption of the social-political balance between local farmers and herders. These made the desert runoff agriculture less viable, leading to its final demise after the 10th century CE. Therefore, a direct link between the rise and fall of desert runoff agriculture and the claimed climatic changes in the southern Levant seems unlikely.