Plague and climate change triggered an economic downturn in the Byzantine Empire 1,500 years ago
Plague and triggered a severe economic downturn on the fringe of the Byzantine Empire 1,500 years ago, a study of ancient grape pips has revealed. Researchers from Israel examined thousands of grape pips and cereal grains, as well as ceramic sherds from waste heaps in the Negev left behind in the mid-6th Century. They found evidence for the rise and fall of wine-making with the latter likely linked to an outbreak of bubonic plague, as well as global cooling and local flooding. In their work, archaeologist Guy Bar-Oz of the University of Haifa, Israel, and colleagues focused on Byzantine agriculture in the Negev Highlands where farming was made possible in the desert through the runoff from rainwater. While the former glory of the study sites of Elusa, Nessana and Shivta is attested to by the remains of well-built stone structures, the researchers instead turned to a little dumpster diving to shine a light on what life in the settlements was really like. 'Your trash says a lot about you. In the ancient trash mounds of the Negev, there is a record of residents' daily lives in the form of plant remains, animal remains, ceramic sherds and more,' explained Professor Bar-Oz. 'We excavated these mounds to uncover the human activity behind the trash, what it included, when it flourished and when it declined.' Archaeobotany the study of ancient seeds can reconstruct past 'economy, environment and culture, but the way there is not easy,' said paper author Ehud Weiss of Isreal's Bar-Ilan University. 'Grain by grain must be sorted through endless sediment samples, looking for seeds, identifying them and counting each one.' In total, the team retrieved almost 10,000 grape seeds, barley grains and wheat grains in total from 11 different trash mounds unearthed at the three sites. 'Identifying seed and fruit remains is a unique capability of our lab,' says Weiss, 'This capacity, he explained, 'relies on the Israel National Reference Collection of Plant Seeds and Fruit held in our lab, and on years of experience in retrieving, processing, and analysing plant remains from sites of all periods.' The researchers noted that the ancient refuse sites contained unusually high numbers of grape seeds a finding consistent with previous theories that Byzantine-era farmers in the Negev were engaged in export-bound wine-growing. In fact, texts dating back to the period laud 'Gaza wine', or 'vinum Gazetum', as a sweet white that was exported by sea out across the Mediterranean and beyond. The amphorae used to transport this beverage so-called 'Gaza Jars' have been found in dig sites throughout the Mediterranean and are also particularly abundant in the rubbish mounds of the Byzantine Negev. Next, Bar-Ilan University archaeobotanist Daniel Fuks analysed the relative frequencies of the grape pips that had been deposited in the rubbish pits over time. 'Imagine you're an ancient farmer with a plot of land to feed your family,' he said. 'On most of it, you plant cereals like wheat and barley because that's how you get your bread. On a smaller part, you plant a vineyard and other crops like legumes, vegetables and fruit trees, for your family's needs.' 'But one day you realise that you could sell the excellent wine you produce, for export, and earn enough cash to buy bread and a bit more. Little by little you expand your vineyard and move from subsistence farming to commercial viticulture.' 'If we look at your trash and count the seeds, we'll discover a rise in the proportion of grape pips relative to cereal grains.' At the Negev sites, he added, 'that's exactly what we discovered a significant rise in the ratio of grape pips to cereal grains between the 4th century CE and the mid-6th century. Then suddenly, it declines.' At the same time, the team also found that the trend in grape pips was matched by a similar rise and fall in the proportion of Gaza Jars versus the so-called 'bag-shaped' jars that were less suited to be carried by camel from the Negev to the port at Gaza. Given that viticulture in the Negev appears to have been linked with the export of wine into the Mediterranean markets as attested to by the grape pips and the jar styles, respectively the finds give unique insights into ancient commerce. 'The discovery of the rise and fall of commercial viticulture in the Byzantine Negev supports other recent evidence [...] for major agricultural and settlement expansion in the 5th to mid-6th century followed by decline,' said Professor Bar-Oz. 'It appears that agricultural settlement in the Negev Highlands received such a blow that it was not revived until modern times. 'Significantly, the decline came nearly a century before the Islamic conquest of the mid-seventh century.' According to the researchers, there were various events in the mid-6th Century that could have caused economic shock and the demise of wine-making in the Negev. These included the Justinian plague the first wave of what would eventually be dubbed the 'Black Death' which spread throughout the Byzantine Empire and beyond in 541 AD. Named for the Roman Emperor who contracted, but survived, the bubonic plague which is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis the infection is thought by historians to have had a high mortality rate and significant socio-economic effects. According to the researchers, the Justinian plague would have shrunk the market for Gaza products and 'detrimentally impacted the Negev economy.' 'If the plague reached the Negev, it could also have harmed the local production capacity and supply of agricultural products in general by inducing a shortage of agricultural labourers,' they added in their paper. Meanwhile, the period also saw two large-scale volcanic eruptions with global effects one in late 535/early 536 AD, thought to have occurred either in Iceland or the tropics and another in 539, which experts have linked to Ilopango in El Salvador. These events which covered the Northern Hemisphere in dust triggered global cooling and the coldest decade in the last 2,000 years, resulting in droughts in Europe but likely flash-flooding in the southern Levant, devastating agriculture. The team noted that both likely triggers for the economic collapse in the mid-6th Century served to reveal the inherent vulnerabilities in the politicaleconomic systems of the time a phenomenon that can also be seen in the present day. 'The difference is that the Byzantines didn't see it coming,' commented Mr Fuks. 'We can actually prepare ourselves for the next outbreak or the imminent consequences of climate change.' 'The question is, will we be wise enough to do so?' The full findings of the study were published in the journal .