האם הם בכלל השפיעו לרעה? בחינה מחודשת של השפעות עידן הקרח הקטן של שלהי העת העתיקה, ושל הדבר היוסטיניאני, על האימפריה הרומית המזרחית, במאות השישית והשביעית לספירה

It has been suggested that the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) and the Justinianic Plague caused a supposed decline of settlements and a decrease in the population of the Late Roman Empire in the middle of the 6th century CE. According to those who support these claims, these events weakened the Late Roman Empire, which caused its subsequent defeats at the hands of the Persian and Arab armies, leading to the loss of large swathes of land in the 7th century CE. As the current article will show, it seems that this view is incorrect, given the available historical sources and archaeological finds, including surveys, settlement patterns, shipwreck data and the spread of eastern pottery in the Mediterranean and beyond, indicating that there was no decline in the second half of the 6th century CE. On the contrary, it is possible that there was a peak in prosperity during the said period. The current article will show this using not only macro and large-scale data, but also local data from the Negev settlements of the period,contradicting several recent publications. Through this, we will show that there was no decline and abandonment connected to either climate or disease during the 6th century CE, and that the decline only started in the 7th century CE. This decline, most probably sparked by the Persian War and sustained by the Arab conquests, was a lengthy process that continued throughout the following two centuries