Rise and fall of Negev viticulture

Researchers report evidence of the rise and fall of the grape industry and related trade networks of the Negev desert during the Byzantine period. Wine brought the peripheral Negev region into an international trade network. Studying the rise and fall of Negev viticulture and its connection to Byzantine Mediterranean trade can offer insight into the development, sustainability, and vulnerability of modern globalized trade networks. Daniel Fuks, Ehud Weiss, Guy Bar-Oz, and colleagues investigated three trash mound sites in the Negev, dating between the 2nd and 8th centuries CE, and used the contents of the mounds as proxies for social and economic conditions. Multiple lines of evidence, including the changing ratio of grape to cereal seeds and of certain types of pottery sherds, charted the rise and fall of viticulture during the Byzantine Period. The authors found that local viticulture and the Negev's involvement in Mediterranean trade grew from the 4th to the 6th centuries before peaking and declining in the mid-6th century. The decline was likely due to contracting markets, possibly triggered by climate change, plague, or other sociopolitical changes. The authors suggest that the decline was not due to the Islamic conquest, which came a century later. According to the authors, the economic success of the Byzantine Negev was unsustainable and was an anomaly amid an extended period of survival-subsistance strategies in the region.

Article #19-22200: "The rise and fall of viticulture in the Late Antique Negev Highlands reconstructed from archaeobotanical and ceramic data," by Daniel Fuks et al.

MEDIA CONTACT: Daniel Fuks, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, ISRAEL; e-mail: daniel.fuks@biu.ac.il

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