ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Prehistory of the Levant

The Levant is a region located in the eastern Mediterranean, comprising of modern-day countries like Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Before people started writing things down, which we call prehistory, there were lots of different groups of people living there, and they left behind clues about what life was like for them.

Thousands of years ago, the people living in the Levant were nomads or hunter-gatherers, which means they didn't stay in one place for very long and they mostly hunted animals or gathered wild plants for food. They used tools made of stone and bone to help them with their everyday activities, like hunting and preparing food.

Around 12,000 years ago, something big happened. People started to settle in one place, and they began to grow their own food instead of hunting and gathering. This is what we call farming or agriculture. They started to build houses and make pottery, which is like a clay container that you can put things in.

An important site from this time period is called Jericho, which is in modern-day Palestine. It's thought to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, dating back to around 8000 BCE.

Over time, different groups of people came and went from the Levant, like the Canaanites and the Israelites. They built cities and empires, and they left behind stories and artifacts that we can still study today.

So basically, the prehistory of the Levant is all about the time before people started writing down history. We can learn a lot about how people lived and interacted with their environment by looking at the things they left behind, like tools, houses, and pottery.