can be made are limited due to differences in topography and climate; Israelite agriculture also depended on rainfall rather than the river-based irrigation of these two civilizations, resulting in the preference for different crops. Ugarit and Phoenicia were closer neighbors of ancient Israel, and shared a topography and climate similar to that of ancient Israel. Thus, conclusions about the food and drink in ancient Israel have been made with some confidence from this evidence. History Significant milestones in the availability and development food production characteristic of Israelite cuisine occurred well before the Israelite period. On the other hand, vestiges of the cuisine and the practices associated with it continue to resonate in later Jewish cuisine and traditions that developed in Israel and Babylonia during the Talmudic period (200 CE-500 CE), and may still be discerned in the various culinary styles that have developed among Jewish communities since then. Pre-Israelite Wild species of barley and emmer wheat were domesticated and cultivated in the Jordan River Valley as early as the 9th millennium BCE. Archaeologists have found the carbonized seeds of two kinds of primitive wheat, einkorn and emmer, and two-row barley, in the earliest levels of digs at Jericho, one of the first cities in the world. During the Pottery Neolithic period (6000-4300 BCE), the development of pottery enabled people to produce portable containers for the transportation and storage of food, and an economy based on agriculture and herding developed. Archaeological evidence indicates that figs, lentils and broad beans were being cultivated from Neolithic times. During the Chalcolithic period (4300-3300 BCE), large pottery containers, indicative of settled peoples, appear in the archaeological record. Date palm cultivation began in the Jordan River Valley, and the earliest date pits have been discovered at Ein Gedi by the Dead Sea. In the Golan, olives trees were grown and olive oil was produced there. Chickpea cultivation dates back to the Bronze Age (3300 – 1200 BCE) and grapes and olives became important crops in the hill country. Wine and oil were traded for wheat with the cities on the coastal plain, and for meat and skins with semi-nomadic herders. Wine and carobs were also exported to Egypt during this period. At Arad in the northern Negev, the remains of wheat, barley and legumes have been found, along with stone-lined storage pits for grain from this period. Pottery was imported from Cyprus and Mycenae in Greece