How Complex was the Late Antique Economy: Subsistence or Highly-Integrated

LATE ANTIQUE ECONOMY
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Introduction
Late Antiquity is the period used explicitly by historians in describing the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages in the Mediterranean world, the Near East, and mainland Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD, and marked the end of the crisis of the Roman Empire and was contemporary with the Sasanian Empire. The late antique economy characterized agriculture, trade, and manufacturing. As a result, it was both a subsistence and highly-integrated economy. A subsistence economy focuses on providing basic human needs such as clothing, shelter, and food, rather than to the market. A highly-integrated economy is where efforts are channeled towards increased investment to support common trade, single currency, and industrialization to harmonize the policies and rules of trade and facilitate economic development. Thus, the late antique economy's complexity embeds the primary, secondary, and tertiary production activities.[William Bowden, Luke Lavan, and Carlos Machado, "Recent research on the late antique countryside," (2004), 25.]
Primary Production
Like many other pre-modern economies, the late antique economy was from the activities of agricultural production. Agricultural production was a quest for subsistence (self-sufficiency) by individual families or other cohesive ethnic groups to improve their living standards. Similarly, agricultural production was a part of the highly-integrated economy committed to increasing the marketization and surplus production to reduce relative costs of goods in the market spheres and increase absolute wealth for both the individuals and states.
Climate Change
The states in the Mediterranean, the Near East, and mainland Europe regions survived, as the eastern part of the empire, the economic conditions were quite different from those witnessed in the western territories. In the eastern regions, the expansion of the intensive and extensive agricultural activities within the marginal environments inarguably served as the representations of the most outstanding element of the late antique economy. The phenomenon justifies a cooler and more humid climate experienced between the 4th and 6th centuries that promoted agriculture in the eastern provinces. It meant higher rainfall and permanent river watercourses. As a result, there were increased settlement patterns in North African regions such as Egypt, Libya, and Near East. The cooler and humid late antique climate promoted economic development in these eastern regions and is often blamed for economic decline in the western regions during the late antique period. The favorable climatic conditions in the eastern regions, which meant improved agricultural production, contributed to improved economic transformations of the late antique economy as a whole. Though the Western regions were not heavily involved in agriculture, they were still adequately supplied with the needed agricultural products through improved trade.[Arnold Hugh Martin Jones and Peter Astbury Brunt, The Roman economy: studies in ancient economic and administrative history, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1974), 130-31.] [Luke A. Lavan and William Bowden, Theory and practice in late antique archaeology, (Vol. 1. Brill, 2003), 46.]
Stock-raising
The dominant role of environmental archeology in studying ancient economic practices has facilitated advances in stock-raising. The study of faunal remains contributes to understanding the role that animal husbandry played in the late antique economy and the respective changes during the transition period between Roman and Post-Roman economies in late antiquity. The 5th and 6th centuries in the west resulted in the shift from the specialized way of rearing animals to mixed husbandry practices. Similar trends were evident towards mixed-farming, with cereal production receded in most of the West's marginal regions with a warmer climate. Mixed-farming was embraced in the East as the region had a favorable climate for agricultural production. Mixed animal husbandry was encouraged in the west owing to its warmer and less humid climate. The consequent outcome was a balanced stock-raising of agricultural products where the west focused on animal rearing and the East focused on crop farming. The increased embracing of mixed-farming led to the expansion of agricultural production onto the previously unoccupied lands. Improved animal (meat) products and crop (cereal) production resulted in inadequate consumer products. The positive impact was realized through the enhancement of the living standards and reduced the cost of goods. The increased availability of agricultural products also meant improved trade, which promoted the late antique economy's growth.[Finley, M. I. (1973). The Ancient Economy, University of California Press.] [Tamara Lewit, Villas, Farms and the Late Roman Rural Economy (third to fifth centuries AD), (Archaeopress, 2004), 66.] [Bryan Ward-Perkins, The fall of Rome: and the end of civilization, (Oxford University Press, 2006), 18..]
Wine and Oil Production
While the different studies of faunal and pollen remain only represent the available evidence about understanding the impact of animal husbandry and crop production on the late antique economy, other agricultural activities have been associate with leaving clearer archeological traces in a variety of landscapes. The situation is of relevance and applicability to the production of oil and wine. Oil and wine production has specifically been subjected to investigation concerning particular details in consideration of hundreds of ancient presses that have been discovered across the Mediterranean countryside. Though it is notoriously difficult to date these ancient presses, in most instances, the only remains of a press are usually collection vats or rock-cut pressing bed, which helps in shedding some light that affirms their earliest phases of use. Additionally, the excavations of larger installations, pottery surveys, and typological studies have been in agreement that Late Antiquity managed to witness a considerable surge in the complexity, capacity, and infrastructure. These were explicitly devoted to facilitating these two essential Mediterranean staples, oil and wine, particularly in the East. The situation that has further justified archeology of oil and wine production in Late Antiquity is discovering the remains of Amphorae. A jar with two vertical handles mainly used in antiquity for the transportation and storage of foodstuffs such as olive oil and wine, found in the East. Therefore, oil and wine production is considered one of the activities carried out in the late antique economy.[Sean Kingsley, "The economic impact of the Palestinian wine trade in Late Antiquity," Economy and Exchange in the East Mediterranean during Late Antiquity (2001), 46.] [Arnold Jones and Hugh Martin, The later Roman Empire, 284-602: a social economic and administrative survey, (Vol. 2. taylor & Francis, 1986), 61.] [DPS Peocock–DF Williams and D. P. S. Peacock, "Amphorae and the Roman economy," An introductory guide. London (1986), 24..]
Fishing
Fishing is another activity associated with the primary production that greatly had an economic significance in Late Antiquity. For example, multiple pieces of evidence for fish salting in Late Antiquity have been found, compared to those of the earlier Roman period. In Africa, the diverse infrastructure for the production of fish sauces rarely dates after the 5th century, which is evidence of the possibility of their origin traces back to the late antique period. Admittedly, only a few numbers of the fish salteries have managed to be excavated to date. A similar case applies in Italy. It has been determined that only relatively small maritime villas' continued witnessing repairs to salteries and fish-breeding tanks after the 3rd century. However, after recording a decline in Spain's 3rd century, the production of salsamenta marked an exponential recovery from the 4th to 6th century. Along the Black Sea, there is a high degree of characterization of local variability in the fate of the fish processing industry. Some production centers, such as the Hugo 90-vat facility being excavated at Chersonesos, with an estimated annual processing capacity of 3,000 – 3,500 metric tons of fish. The facility remained in use in the entire late antique period, while others, such as Salatcik excavated at the Kerch peninsula, determined to have been abandoned by the 4th century. Therefore, the collection of evidence to quantify fishing activity endeavors depicts the activity as an element of the late antique economy.[Sean A. Kingsley, Barbarian Seas: Late Rome to Islam, (Periplus, 2004), 34.] [Neil Christie, From Constantine to Charlemagne: an archaeology of Italy, AD 300-800, (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2006), 48.] [Luke Lavan and Michael Mulryan, Field methods and post-excavation techniques in late antique archaeology, (Brill, 2015), 70.] [John Hugo Wolfgang Gideon Liebeschuetz "Antioch: city and imperial administration in the later Roman Empire," (1972), 12.]
Extraction
An extraction is also a form of primary production that was practiced as an activity of the late antique economy. Despite the inherent difficulty to date the phases of mine exploitation, it has been determined that there was a sharp decrease in mining activities in Late Antiquity, most specifically in the West, for example, Gaul and Spain. The economic decline within the Western empire, coupled with the decrease in the army's size, was regarded as having triggered conditions responsible for this change. These declines were partly offset by the increased importing of metals from the East, which sustained extraction into the Islamic period. Some copper mines in Cyprus, for example, are reported as having remained in use until the 7th century. Also, there has been evidence of smelting at numerous mining sites across the Island through the late antique period. Besides, there was the identification of smelting and copper mining facilities within the southern Negrev, in the Nahal Amram area, to the north-west of Aila and west of Aqaba. These multi-installation phases were specifically active in the early Islamic period of Late Antiquity between the 7th and 8th centuries.[Simon James, "The fabricae: state arms factories of the Later Roman Empire," In Military Equipment and the Identity of Roman Soldiers, Proceedings of the Fourth Roman Military Equipment Conference, BAR International Series, 1988, vol. 394, 259.] [Cyril Mango, Byzantine architecture, (Abrams, 1976), 13.]
Moreover, in the same regions, the famous copper mining centers of Faynan and Phaeno were shut in the mid-4th century, an indication of a rapid decline in copper extraction when it was believed as having ceased to be an imperial metallum. Amid the Eastern Desert in Egypt, there was a large workforce of skilled engineers and miners, about 1000 personnel, who were maintained by the Byzantine state until the military crisis of the 7th century. The situations are evidence of extraction capacities as economic activities geared towards controlling resources in the late antique period.[Barrie Cook, Robin Cormack, Kenneth Rainsbury Dark, Anthony Eastmond, Christopher Entwistle, Valika Foundoulaki, Zaga Gavrilovic, Hero Granger-Taylor, Rowena Loverance, and John Lowden, Byzantium: treasures of Byzantine art and culture from British collections. Edited by David Buckton, (London: British Museum Press, 1994), 52.]
Secondary Production
The degree of finished goods production about the processing, manufacturing, and construction activities in Late Antiquity is a significant component for understanding this period's economy. Some of these activities, including crafting, stone-cutting, shipbuilding, pottery, metal-work...