<P> Periods of rapid climate change generally saw a collapse of this mixed Mediterranean farming system; commercial production was replaced with subsistence agricultural foodstuffs; and transhumance pastoralism became a year - round nomadic pastoral activity, whilst tribal groups wandered in a circular pattern north to the Euphrates, or south to the Egyptian delta with their flocks . Occasionally, tribal chieftains would emerge, raiding enemy settlements and rewarding loyal followers from the spoils or by tariffs levied on merchants . Should the cities band together and retaliate, a neighbouring state intervene or should the chieftain suffer a reversal of fortune, allies would fall away or intertribal feuding would return . It has been suggested that the Patriarchal tales of the Bible reflect such social forms . During the periods of the collapse of Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia and the First Intermediate Period of Egypt, the Hyksos invasions and the end of the Middle Bronze Age in Assyria and Babylonia, and the Late Bronze Age collapse, trade through the Canaanite area would dwindle, as Egypt, Babylonia, and to a lesser degree Assyria, withdrew into their isolation . When the climates stabilized, trade would resume firstly along the coast in the area of the Philistine and Phoenician cities . As markets redeveloped, new trade routes that would avoid the heavy tariffs of the coast would develop from Kadesh Barnea, through Hebron, Lachish, Jerusalem, Bethel, Samaria, Shechem, Shiloh through Galilee to Jezreel, Hazor and Megiddo . Secondary Canaanite cities would develop in this region . Further economic development would see the creation of a third trade route from Eilath, Timna, Edom (Seir), Moab, Ammon and thence to the Aramean states of Damascus and Palmyra . Earlier states (for example the Philistines and Tyrians in the case of Judah and Samaria, for the second route, and Judah and Israel for the third route) tried generally unsuccessfully to control the interior trade . </P> <P> Eventually, the prosperity of this trade would attract more powerful regional neighbours, such as Ancient Egypt, Assyria, the Babylonians, Persians, Ancient Greeks and Romans, who would control the Canaanites politically, levying tribute, taxes and tariffs . Often in such periods, thorough overgrazing would result in a climatic collapse and a repeat of the cycle (e.g., PPNB, Ghassulian, Uruk, and the Bronze Age cycles already mentioned). The fall of later Canaanite civilization occurred with the incorporation of the area into the Greco - Roman world (as Iudaea province), and after Byzantine times, into the Muslim Arab and proto - Muslim Umayyad Caliphate . Western Aramaic, one of the two lingua francas of Canaanite civilization, is still spoken in a number of small Syrian villages, whilst Phoenician Canaanite disappeared as a spoken language in about 100 AD . A separate Akkadian - infused Eastern Aramaic is still spoken by the existing Assyrians of Iraq, Iran, northeast Syria and southeast Turkey . </P> <P> Tel Kabri contains the remains of a Canaanite city from the Middle Bronze Age (2000--1550 BC). The city, the most important of the cities in the Western Galilee during that period, had a palace at its center . Tel Kabri is the only Canaanite city that can be excavated in its entirety because after the city was abandoned, no other city was built over its remains . It is notable because the predominant extra-Canaanite cultural influence is Minoan; Minoan - style frescoes decorate the palace . </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs expansion . You can help by adding to it . (February 2017) </Td> </Tr> </Table>

Who lived in the land of canaan before the israelites