Climate stability and societal decline on the margins of the Byzantine empire in the Negev Desert

Abstract Understanding past human settlement of inhospitable regions is one of the most intriguing puzzles in archaeological research, with implications for more sustainable use of marginal regions today. During the Byzantine period in the 4th century CE, large settlements were established in the ar...

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Autores principales:	Petra Vaiglova, Gideon Hartman, Nimrod Marom, Avner Ayalon, Miryam Bar-Matthews, Tami Zilberman, Gal Yasur, Michael Buckley, Rachel Bernstein, Yotam Tepper, Lior Weissbrod, Tali Erickson-Gini, Guy Bar-Oz
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2020
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/7f5ac47b04cb4a6aa829b0dbea64aea8
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:7f5ac47b04cb4a6aa829b0dbea64aea82021-12-02T14:16:58ZClimate stability and societal decline on the margins of the Byzantine empire in the Negev Desert10.1038/s41598-020-58360-52045-2322https://doaj.org/article/7f5ac47b04cb4a6aa829b0dbea64aea82020-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58360-5https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Understanding past human settlement of inhospitable regions is one of the most intriguing puzzles in archaeological research, with implications for more sustainable use of marginal regions today. During the Byzantine period in the 4th century CE, large settlements were established in the arid region of the Negev Desert, Israel, but it remains unclear why it did so, and why the settlements were abandoned three centuries later. Previous theories proposed that the Negev was a “green desert” in the early 1st millennium CE, and that the Byzantine Empire withdrew from this region due to a dramatic climatic downturn. In the absence of a local climate archive correlated to the Byzantine/Early Islamic transition, testing this theory has proven challenging. We use stable isotopic indicators of animal dietary and mobility patterns to assess the extent of the vegetative cover in the desert. By doing so, we aim to detect possible climatic fluctuations that may have led to the abandonment of the Byzantine settlements. The findings show that the Negev Desert was not greener during the time period under investigation than it is today and that the composition of the animals’ diets, as well as their grazing mobility patterns, remained unchanged through the Byzantine/Early Islamic transition. Favoring a non-climatic explanation, we propose instead that the abandonment of the Negev Byzantine settlements was motivated by restructuring of the Empire’s territorial priorities.Petra VaiglovaGideon HartmanNimrod MaromAvner AyalonMiryam Bar-MatthewsTami ZilbermanGal YasurMichael BuckleyRachel BernsteinYotam TepperLior WeissbrodTali Erickson-GiniGuy Bar-OzNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 10, Iss 1, Pp 1-13 (2020)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Petra Vaiglova Gideon Hartman Nimrod Marom Avner Ayalon Miryam Bar-Matthews Tami Zilberman Gal Yasur Michael Buckley Rachel Bernstein Yotam Tepper Lior Weissbrod Tali Erickson-Gini Guy Bar-Oz Climate stability and societal decline on the margins of the Byzantine empire in the Negev Desert
description	Abstract Understanding past human settlement of inhospitable regions is one of the most intriguing puzzles in archaeological research, with implications for more sustainable use of marginal regions today. During the Byzantine period in the 4th century CE, large settlements were established in the arid region of the Negev Desert, Israel, but it remains unclear why it did so, and why the settlements were abandoned three centuries later. Previous theories proposed that the Negev was a “green desert” in the early 1st millennium CE, and that the Byzantine Empire withdrew from this region due to a dramatic climatic downturn. In the absence of a local climate archive correlated to the Byzantine/Early Islamic transition, testing this theory has proven challenging. We use stable isotopic indicators of animal dietary and mobility patterns to assess the extent of the vegetative cover in the desert. By doing so, we aim to detect possible climatic fluctuations that may have led to the abandonment of the Byzantine settlements. The findings show that the Negev Desert was not greener during the time period under investigation than it is today and that the composition of the animals’ diets, as well as their grazing mobility patterns, remained unchanged through the Byzantine/Early Islamic transition. Favoring a non-climatic explanation, we propose instead that the abandonment of the Negev Byzantine settlements was motivated by restructuring of the Empire’s territorial priorities.
format	article
author	Petra Vaiglova Gideon Hartman Nimrod Marom Avner Ayalon Miryam Bar-Matthews Tami Zilberman Gal Yasur Michael Buckley Rachel Bernstein Yotam Tepper Lior Weissbrod Tali Erickson-Gini Guy Bar-Oz
author_facet	Petra Vaiglova Gideon Hartman Nimrod Marom Avner Ayalon Miryam Bar-Matthews Tami Zilberman Gal Yasur Michael Buckley Rachel Bernstein Yotam Tepper Lior Weissbrod Tali Erickson-Gini Guy Bar-Oz
author_sort	Petra Vaiglova
title	Climate stability and societal decline on the margins of the Byzantine empire in the Negev Desert
title_short	Climate stability and societal decline on the margins of the Byzantine empire in the Negev Desert
title_full	Climate stability and societal decline on the margins of the Byzantine empire in the Negev Desert
title_fullStr	Climate stability and societal decline on the margins of the Byzantine empire in the Negev Desert
title_full_unstemmed	Climate stability and societal decline on the margins of the Byzantine empire in the Negev Desert
title_sort	climate stability and societal decline on the margins of the byzantine empire in the negev desert
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2020
url	https://doaj.org/article/7f5ac47b04cb4a6aa829b0dbea64aea8
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Climate stability and societal decline on the margins of the Byzantine empire in the Negev Desert

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