Qualitative Weighting of Environmental Impact in the Southern Levant between the 4th-c. BCE to 20th-c. CE through Culture-nature Duality

A qualitative method is presented to explain anthropogenic impact on the environment in the southern Levant regarding ancient land-use. Three major monocultural periods between the 4th-c. BCE and 20th-c. CE (Hellenistic, Byzantine, and Ottoman) are examined as a case study. Hellenistic olive oil presses, Byzantine winepresses, and Ottoman animal pens are extracted from archaeological survey data. The high concentration of “same type” agricultural installations per period, compared to the total, attests to the monoculture which reflects agricultural intensification and industrialization. Analysis in geographic information systems (GIS) indicates that areas of cumulatively more intense monocultural land-use caused natural vegetation-cover today with a form of land-degradation called plagioclimax. A qualitative narrative is established through the pagus, a metaphor for environmental “other” and place of extending civilization, to explain. This metaphorical pagus also corresponds to that real space which is heavily impacted by the monocultural activity. Ontological independence, which challenged divine causality, is examined through Hellenistic divination texts, Byzantine church mosaics, and Ottoman Sufi texts. These expressions reflect the geopiety, or connection between people and land, and help link the monoculture, intensification, industrialization, capitalism, and plagioclimax. The pagus, as sacrificial other, concurrently enabled conservation of additional areas that even today represent nature reserves.