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

Petra Vaiglova (Griffith University)

In this colloquium, Petra Vaiglova uses interdisciplinary methods to establish whether climate change played a role in the abandonment of Byzantine settlements in the Negev Desert. She uses animal dietary and mobility patterns inferred using multiple isotopic proxies to assess the extent of the vegetative cover and climate conditions in the desert, which remained unchanged across the Byzantine/Early Islamic transition. She suggests that climate change was not the major determinant in the Empire’s withdrawal from its southernmost extent in the Levant.