A view point on Eastern Mediterranean villages in late antiquity: Applying the lens of community resilience theory

Abstract

The 4th to 6th centuries CE were a time of natural disasters including plague, earthquakes, and climatic instability, as well as warfare and invasions. Yet archaeological evidence demonstrates that in this period rural village communities in the eastern Mediterranean flourished, with new building, settlement of marginal land, high levels of agricultural production, and wide export of their products. In seeking to explain the vitality of the Eastern Mediterranean countryside in spite of manifold shocks, this article applies Community Resilience Theory, a body of research on the internal socio-economic capacities that have enabled communities in the contemporary world to successfully bounce ba..