Southern Asia Minor and Northwest Syria at the End of Antiquity: A View from the Countryside.

Abstract

This dissertation examines the changes in Graeco-Roman life that mark the end of antiquity in southern Asia Minor and northwest Syria using the archaeology of the countryside. By 700 CE, the eastern Roman empire had changed fundamentally: many cities had been largely abandoned, economic networks reconfigured, and social relationships renegotiated. This process is often understood as a systemic collapse into a “dark age” caused by conflict with Persians and Muslims, political and economic instability, the rise of Christianity, plague, earthquakes, climate change, and land degradation. What did this process feel like for those experiencing it? Did Graeco-Roman life collapse, or change into something new? Answers have traditionally been sought with evidence from cities alone, but doing so ignores the landscapes surrounding them. I look beyond cities and investigate the countryside using the methods of regional survey and environmental archaeology and science. I aim to understand the end of antiquity by identifying broad patterns of change related to population and settlement dynamics, economic patterns, subsistence strategies, and environmental conditions. My secondary goal is to determine the usefulness of these methods in investigating a major historical problem. My research suggests that society became less complex and life more difficult for many people in these regions during the seventh century. Population declined, communities became less secure, and access to many commodities, goods, and services became restricted or cut off. The post-seventh-century fates of two networks of exchange provide a key to understanding these changes and how communities responded to them. Whereas greater dependence on the state redistribution system made certain communities vulnerable to the disruptions of this period, the continuation of commercial exchange, operating primarily via local and regional networks but also interregionally, provided a safety net allowing future resilience. Communities survived the unpredictability of these centuries by eschewing long-term investment in favor of risk-sensitive strategies that increased their flexibility: they lived in villages rather than cities or farmsteads, abandoned intensive agriculture for more balanced agropastoralism, and restricted family size. These responses reflect an aggregate desire to make life safe and fulfilling in the face of apprehension about an unknown future.