ABSTRACT
The model presented by Israel Finkelstein for the emergence of early Israel seems very plausible, and in almost every respect provides the 'line of best fit' for the archaeological evidence. The increase in settlement of the highlands in the Early Bronze Age was undoubtedly caused by the economic recession resulting from the collapse of the Egyptian Old Kingdom, the loss of the trading networks and the consequent de-urbanisation of the central and southern Levant. Finkelstein's view that the population kernel of what was to become Israel, lay already within the highlands population of Canaan seems entirely acceptable, and it is only really a question of understanding the mechanism by which the quite disparate farming communities became welded together as a socio-political entity. The polarity between Egypto-Canaan on the one hand and the hill-country farming communities on the other was so pronounced that it created in the latter region the ideal conditions of autonomy, freedom of movement and self-perception to generate an individual identity.
