Editing Canaan (section)

===Overview===
There are several periodization systems for Canaan.{{clarify|Using the term "Canaan" for the time before the appearance of the Canaanites may be problematic. Source? |date= March 2024}} One of them is the following.{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}
* Prior to 4500&nbsp;BC (prehistory&nbsp;– [[Stone Age]]): hunter-gatherer societies slowly giving way to farming and herding societies
* 4500–3500&nbsp;BC ([[Chalcolithic]]): early metal-working and farming
* 3500–2000&nbsp;BC (Early Bronze): prior to written records in the area{{dubious|More recent dates, now preferred: c. 3,200–2,200. Left out: it's the first urban period. Essential development!|date=November 2021}}
* 2000–1550&nbsp;BC (Middle Bronze): [[city-state]]s<ref>{{Cite web |title=Canaanites |url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195393361/obo-9780195393361-0216.xml |access-date=2023-12-01 |website=obo |language=en |archive-date=2023-04-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230403082451/https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195393361/obo-9780195393361-0216.xml |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Glassman |first=Ronald M. |title=The Political Structure of the Canaanite City-States: Monarchy and Merchant Oligarchy |date=2017 |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51695-0_49 |work=The Origins of Democracy in Tribes, City-States and Nation-States |pages=473–477 |editor-last=Glassman |editor-first=Ronald M. |access-date=2023-12-01 |place=Cham |publisher=Springer International Publishing |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-51695-0_49 |isbn=978-3-319-51695-0 |archive-date=2024-04-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240429061941/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-51695-0_49 |url-status=live }}</ref>
* 1550–1200&nbsp;BC (Late Bronze): Egyptian hegemony
* 1200–various dates by region ([[Iron Age]])

After the [[Iron Age]] the periods are named after the various empires that ruled the region: [[Neo-Assyrian Empire|Assyrian]], [[Neo-Babylonian Empire|Babylonian]], [[Persian Empire|Persian]], [[Hellenistic]] (related to [[ancient Greece|Greece]]) and [[Ancient Rome|Roman]].<ref>{{harvnb|Noll|2001|p=26}}</ref>

Canaanite culture developed [[In situ conservation (archaeology)|''in situ'']] from multiple waves of migration merging with the earlier [[Nomadic pastoralism#Origin and history|Circum-Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex]], which in turn developed from a fusion of their ancestral [[Natufian culture|Natufian]] and [[Harifian culture]]s with [[Pre-Pottery Neolithic B]] (PPNB) farming cultures, practicing [[animal domestication]], during the [[8.2-kiloyear event|6200&nbsp;BC climatic crisis]] which led to the [[Neolithic Revolution|Neolithic Revolution/First Agricultural Revolution]] in the [[Levant]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Zarins|first=Juris|title=Pastoralism in the Levant|year=1992|editor1-last=Bar-Yosef|editor1-first=Ofer|chapter=Pastoral nomadism in Arabia: ethnoarchaeology and the archaeological record—a case study|publisher=Prehistory Press|isbn=9780962911088|access-date=9 October 2018|editor2-last=Khazanov|editor2-first=Anatoly|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZjoR7vCdQh4C|archive-date=29 April 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240429061902/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZjoR7vCdQh4C|url-status=live}}</ref> The majority of Canaan is covered by the [[Eastern Mediterranean conifer–sclerophyllous–broadleaf forests]] ecoregion.{{Citation needed|date=October 2020}}