Continuity and catastrophes in the evolution of settlement in Late Antique and Medieval Sardinia

Recent research in the north African regions between the classical period and the Arab conquest highlight how the Roman and late antique settlement fabric survived almost unchanged the first Arab conquest of north Africa; such research is debunking catastrophist narratives on the first wave of Arabs in North Africa. It would be constructive to compare the experiences of study on the evolution of settlement with those about Sardinia; they focused on the traumatic events of XIIIth and XIVth centuries, and on the institutional causes of rural depopulation, but also on the integration of these data acquired with the new contributions from geoarchaeology and paleoclimatology.