In 2018 a dendroecological study of the European Alps and Russian Altai produced convincing data on the existence of a “Late Antique Little Ice Age”. A series of unusually large eruptions in the early 530s resulted in the most significant cooling of the earth’s climate for the last 2 millennium. Encouraged by advances in palaeoclimatology, historians have returned to the study of the 6th century as an area ripe for investigation into human-climate relationships. New archaeobotanical studies of the villages and towns of the Negev identify a decline in agricultural production and economic prosperity beginning in the middle 6th century. The studies argue that we should attribute this decline to the impacts of climate change upon communities farming in challenging environments. In conjunction to this research, archaeologists have embraced the concept of resilience as a useful tool to study not only the historical agency of the natural world, but also anthropogenic responses to the physical environment. Using a resilience framework, a cyclical narrative is constructed wherein societies rebuild systems from their constituent parts following upheaval. In this talk I will test a cyclical approach to the study of the towns and villages of the Negev in the late 6th century. I will discuss community resilience, psychological notions of the cycle of change, and conceptions of circular economies. Does a cyclical approach offer a more accurate reconstruction of human-environment relationships in the past?