The Umayyad Caliphate heralded a century of economic boom, maturity in governmental structures, and cultural splendour in al-Andalus, which collapsed only in the year 1008 (finally dissolving in 1031). The São Mamede mountains around Marvão are likely to have benefited during the 10th-11th century alongside the rest of al-Andalus: population increased as hamlets (aldeias) of smallholdings expanded from villas (although, in Marvão, never reaching the levels of Roman Ammaia); new shepherding pathways (karrales) criss-crossed Roman roads (calçadas), providing the dense network of mountain pathways seen today; irrigation technology and land-terracing improved, notably using gravity-flow water chutes (as-sāqiya); new crops (e.g. the doñegal fig, mulberry for silk production, citrus trees) and farming knowledge enabled more summer harvests and diversification away from the traditional vine, olive, cork oak and fig; Jewish and Christian communities were allowed considerable freedoms; some immigration occurred, with increases in the numbers of Berbers and Slavs (saqaliba, from central Europe - a notable Slav, Sabur, would be the first ruler of the taifa of Badajoz), deemed caliphate 'loyalists'.[26] Martial traditions were kept alive by recruitment of youths to fight in summer campaigns (aceifas) against the Christian north.[27]