International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

PALAESTINA BYZANTINA
 II: 
NEW BYZANTINE STUDIES IN ARCHAEOLOGY
Convener:
 Lee I. Levine
Gideon Avni
, 
Agricultural Landscapes in Byzantine and Early Islamic Palestine 
(6
th
- 10
th
Centuries CE) – Continuity and Change
Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah
, 
Jerusalem in the Fourth Century – A City in Transition
Joseph Patrich
, 
A Digital Corpus of Early Christian Churches and Monasteries in the Holy Land
Moshe Fischer
, 
Palaestina Byzantina 
through Its Column Capitals: Kautzsch 80 Years Later
Jacob Ashkenazi – Mordechai Aviam
, 
Galilee in Late Antiquity – Societies and Landscapes in Change

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Gideon Avni
Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem / Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel; 
[e-mail]
Agricultural Landscapes in Byzantine and Early Islamic Palestine 
(6
th
- 10
th
Centuries CE) – Continuity and Change
The countryside of Palestine in Late Antiquity was dotted with hundreds of villages and 
farmsteads, forming one of the most extensive agricultural landscapes of the Mediterranean in Late 
Antiquity. The mass production of wheat, oil and wine was documented in numerous archaeological 
reports and comprehensive studies, which emphasize the expansion of settlement between the 
fourth and seventh centuries, and their contraction following the Arab conquest.
This picture of “rise and fall” was recently challenged by new studies that focus on the ancient 
fields and their context, revising the chronological framework for their use. The archaeological 
research of rural hinterlands Palestine included the dating of agricultural terraces in the Negev 
Highlands and the Jerusalem region with OSL (Optically stimulated luminescence) methodology. 
A detailed analysis conducted in a number of research areas shows that most of agricultural systems 
attributed to the Roman period had, in fact, been established during Byzantine times, and continued 
to function uninterruptedly until the tenth and eleventh centuries. Following these observations, a 
new chronological framework is suggested here for the intensification and abatement of agriculture 
in Palestine and surrounding regions.
In addition, the excavations in the Arabah Valley and southern Jordan facilitated a clearer 
chronological framework for the expansion of agriculture into these fringe zones in the Early Islamic 
period. A number of 
qanat
underground irrigation systems in the vicinity of these farmsteads 
indicates that the first penetration of this unique technology was associated with a demographic 
and economic peak under Muslim rule.
The comprehensive study of the hinterlands of Palestine show a shift from the agricultural 
commodities that prevailed in the Roman and Byzantine period to new systems of commercial 
exchanges in agricultural goods during Early Islamic times. The picture that emerge connect 
the expansion of agriculture and irrigation systems into the fringe zones to a demographic and 
economic prosperity that began in the Byzantine period and continued during the seventh – tenth 
centuries, evidencing changes in the patterns of production and consumption of agricultural goods.