Prehistory of the Levant
Rainfall decreases from the north to the south, with the result that the northern region of Historical Palestine has generally been more economically developed than the southern one of Judah.
[citation needed] At the latest from the Neolithic period onwards, the area's location at the center of three trade routes linking three continents made it the meeting place for religious and cultural influences from Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor: The area seems to have suffered from acute periods of desiccation, and reduced rainfall which has influenced the relative importance of settled versus nomadic ways of living.
The growth of villages rapidly proceeds to increased prosperity of market towns and city states, which attract the attention of neighbouring great powers, who may invade to capture control of regional trade networks and possibilities for tribute and taxation.
Stone tools of the Oldowan industry, preceding the Acheulian, were found in the Negev and Syrian deserts and support the presence of pre-Acheulian cultures in the Levantine corridor, but their chronological context cannot be determined.
[6] North of Ubeidiya is the important site of Gesher Benot Ya'akov ("Daughters of Jacob Bridge" – GBY) dated to slightly after c. 790,000 years ago.
GBY provides information on many aspects of the life of its inhabitants: Many large mammal bones were found at the site, including those of the elephant Palaeoloxodon recki display evidence of butchery by the early humans.
This distribution of sites in various regions of different conditions indicates either a more suitable climate in this period (the Chibanian stage of the Pleistocene) or alternatively better human adapting skills.
An important discovery from Lake Ram is a stone pebble with evidence of artificial shaping and polishing, which resembles the body of a woman and thus serves as one of the earliest figurines known.
Kebaran shows affinities with the earlier Helwan phase in the Egyptian Fayyum, and may be associated with a movement of people across the Sinai associated with the climatic warming after the Late Glacial Maxima of 20,000 BCE.
[7] Although the Late Natufian experienced a slight reversal in this trend (possibly a result of the cold period known as the Younger Dryas) as their community size shrank and they became more nomadic, it is believed that this culture continued through and was the foundation for the Neolithic Revolution.
A Chalcolithic culture, the Ghassulian economy was a mixed agricultural system consisting of extensive cultivation of grains (wheat and barley), intensive horticulture of vegetable crops, commercial production of vines and olives, and a combination of transhumance and nomadic pastoralism.
The Ghassulian culture, according to Juris Zarins, developed out of the earlier Munhata phase of what he calls the "circum Arabian nomadic pastoral complex", probably associated with the first appearance of Semites in this area.
Urban development again began culminating in Early Bronze Age sites like Ebla, which by 2,300 BCE, was incorporated once again into the Empire of Sargon, and then Naram-Sin of Akkad (Biblical Accad).
The collapse of the Akkadian Empire, saw the arrival of peoples using Khirbet Kerak Ware pottery,[13] coming originally from the Zagros Mountains, east of the Tigris.
It is suspected by some Ur seals that this event marks the arrival in Syria and Palestine of the Hurrians, people later known in the Biblical tradition possibly as Horites.
