Idol, pebble
Byblos, Neolithic Period (9.000-4.000 B.C.)
This pebble is one of the earliest known human figures attested in Lebanon. The face is represented by two incised lines.

Point, flint
Byblos, Neolithic Period (9.000-4.000 B.C.)
This point is one of the hunting tools used during the Neolithic period by the people of Byblos. Its small size suggests that it was used for hunting small animals.

Hook, copper
Byblos, Chalcolithic Period (4.000-3200 B.C.)
Metal tools appear in Byblos during the 4th. millenium B.C. Fishing was one of the major activities of the people of Byblos as suggested by the presence of this type of hook.

Some million years ago, the first inhabitants of Lebanon settled along its coast which enjoyed a warm Mediterranean climate.

Their lithic tools, scarce during the Lower Palaeolithic (1M.-150.000 B.C.) were produced in large numbers during the Middle (150.000-40.000 B.C.) and Upper Palaeolithic (40.000-18.000 B.C.). because of the development of more elaborate cutting techniques which produced points, scrapers and burins. These hunters lived in caves and rock shelters from fishing and gathering. The emergence of the Microlithic flint tools of the Epipalaeolithic (18.000-9.000 B.C.) coïncides with the open air settlement which was made possible by the warming of the climate.

Traces of the first villages are attested at Dik el Mehdi and Labwe in the Beqaa (ca. 7500 B.C.) and at Byblos (ca. 7000 B.C.)
The Neolithic marks the beginning of an agro-pastoral economy characterized by plant and animal domestication and the use of pottery ((9.000-4000 B.C.).

This evolution will reach its climax around 4000 B.C. during the Chalcolithic with the appearance of copper, first witnessed by the fishing hooks of Byblos.