In this account only the principal explorations have been mentioned. In all parts of Palestine, and especially at Jerusalem, important archæological discoveries are frequently made when people are digging to lay the foundations of buildings, to construct a cistern, or for other purposes. Other important discoveries, as, for instance, the rock-cut high place at Petra,[68] and the painted tombs at Beit Jibrin,[69] have been made by people traveling through the land. Many discoveries made in this way are recorded in the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund, the _Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins_, and the _Revue biblique_. Lack of space forbids the attempt to chronicle these.[70] CHAPTER V OUTLINE OF PALESTINE’S ARCHÆOLOGICAL HISTORY THE EARLY STONE AGE. THE LATE STONE AGE. THE AMORITES. THE CANAANITES. EGYPTIAN DOMINATION: Thothmes III. Palestine in the El-Amarna Letters. Seti I. Ramses II. Merneptah. Ramses III. THE PHILISTINES. THE HEBREWS. PHILISTINE CIVILIZATION. THE HEBREW KINGDOMS. THE EXILE AND AFTER: The Samaritans. Alexander the Great and his successors. The Maccabees. The Asmonæans. THE COMING OF ROME: The Herods. The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D. LATER HISTORY. =1. The Early Stone Age.=--Palestine appears to have been inhabited at a very remote period. Scholars divide the races of prehistoric men, who used stone implements, into two classes--Palæolithic and Neolithic. Palæolithic men did not shape their stone implements. If they chanced to find a stone shaped like an axe, they used it as such; if they found a long, thin one with a sharp edge, they used it for a knife. Neolithic man had learned to shape his stone tools. He could make knives for himself out of flint and form other tools from stone. The earliest inhabitants of Palestine belonged to the palæolithic period. Unshaped stone implements have been found in many parts of the country. They have been picked up in the maritime plain, in still larger numbers on the elevated land south of Jerusalem, and again to the south of Amman, the Biblical Rabbah Ammon, on the east of the Jordan. The Assumptionist Fathers of Notre Dame de France at Jerusalem have a fine collection of flint implements in their Museum. These palæolithic men lived in caves in which they left traces of their occupation. Several of these caves in Phœnicia have been explored by Père Zumoffen, of the Catholic University of St. Joseph, Beirut.[71] It has been estimated that these cave-dwellers may have been in Palestine as early as 10,000 B. C.