Abstract
This paper studies the development of craft specialization in stone tool production in the Early Bronze Age in the Southern Levant, in particular focusing on Canaanean blades and tabular scrapers. It seems that regional production centers of Canaanean blades and tabular scrapers developed near high quality Eocene flint sources in the Early Bronze Age. Intensive flint mining was probably carried out at these centers. The centers mass-produced these products with high skill and distributed them in large quantities to sites as far away as several dozen kilometers.
In the Early Bronze Age, a variety of daily commodities such as stone tools (Canaanean blades and tabular scrapers), copper tools and pottery were produced in regional production centers rather than in local settlements and were traded intraregionally in the Southern Levant. This suggests that the economy of the Southern Levant in the Early Bronze Age was highly in tegrated.
