THE ANCIENT CANAAN.

CANAAN was the name of a large and prosperous ancient country (at times independent, at others a tributary to Egypt) located in present-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Israel and was also known as Phoenicia.
The origin of the name "Canaan" for the land comes from various ancient texts (among them the Hebrew Bible) and there is no scholarly consensus on precisely where the name originated nor what it was intended to convey about the land. According to the Hebrew Bible the land was named after a man called Canaan, the grandson of Noah (Genesis 10).
A land may become great, not because of the material advantages of its site, but because of the ideas associated with it.
For almost 640 kms (400 mi), the Canaanite coast of today runs North and South in a nearly straight line. The coastal plain is shaped like an hourglass drawn out long and thin: broad in Syria in the Northern third of the coast; shrinking to a mere ribbon in the central or Lebanese third; and widening again along the Southern third in the land that has been called Israel, Judaea, Syria Palaestina, kingdom of Jerusalem, and Palestine. East of the coastal plain rise rocky hills. These culminate in the huge ridge of Mount Lebanon, which parallels the coast for 160 kms (100 mi) in the middle of the stretch.
The climate is Mediterranean, with a cool rainy season from November to March and hot, dry, rainless weather the rest of the year. In ancient times, the land supported considerable wildlife, including:
-Auroch (urus, ure) an extinct large wild cattle, ancestor of domestic cattle and the European bison, crossbred with Steppe bison.
-Ancient Wild Deer generally harmless with quiet wanderings.
Ancient Gazelle typically the dorcas gazelle, although other varieties, including addra gazelle and mountain gazelle were also known. They appear in hunting scenes in Roman art.
-Sahara Oryx, an antelope that formed herds of mixed sexes and inhabited semi-deserts and deserts and were adapted to live in extreme heat, with their efficient cooling mechanism and very low requirement of water. It was hunting extensible for its horns.
-Ancient Ostriches were hunted for their feathers, meat and skin. They apparently became rare and thus valuable enough for Nubians to offer their feathers and eggs as tribute to the pharaohs. The ostrich feather was the symbol of the goddess Maat who wore it on her head. It was the weight against which the heart of the deceased was weighed in the Judgment of the dead.  According to Hor-Apollo: "The man rendering justice to all, was represented by the ostrich feather; because that bird, unlike others, has all its feathers equal. Ostrich egg shells were turned into vessels and beads since prehistoric times. Fans were made from wing feathers. Common soldiers of the Middle Kingdom wore one or two ostrich plumes on their heads signifying victory. During the New Kingdom officers and elite charioteers were decorated with ostrich feathers.
-Ancient lions frequently appeared in Greek art and in legends. Hercules is said to have killed a vicious lion at Nemea. A lion on the island of Kea (Aka Ceos) and a famous statue of the same there: the lion drove some nymphs out. A passage from Herodotus describing Persian descend towards Thermopylae and the 300 there in 480BC says: Xerxes and his army marched from Acanthus through the interior to Therma; and while he was on his way through the Paeonian and Crestonian territories to the River Echidorus, his camels, which carried corn, were attacked by lions. These animals, leaving their usual haunts, came at night and preyed on the camels but touched no man and no other beast... The country in which the lion is found is bounded by the River Nestus, which runs through Abdern and the River Achelous in Acarnania. Lions occur between these two rivers; but they are never seen in the portion of Europe to the East of Nestus or on the continent West of Achelous.
-Ancient leopard is thought to have ranged in the Aegean and Western parts of Turkey. It was not recorded in the Black Sea region. Stone traps for leopards and Caspian tigers dating to the Roman Empire still exist in the Taurus Mountains.
-Ancient bear oldest fossils are from the Chououtien, China, and date back about 500,000 years. It is known now that during the Ice Age it was too cold for the brown bear to survive in Europe except in three places: -Russia, Spain, and the Balkans. Brown bears were present in Britain until no later than 1000 AC, when they had been exterminated through over-hunting. Brown bears were also used in Ancient Rome for fighting in arenas. The strongest bears apparently came from Caledonia and Dalmatia. Bears were largerly carnivorous with 80% of its diet consisting of animal matter. However, as its habitat increasingly diminished, the portion of meat in its diet decreased with it until by late Middle Ages, meat consisted of only 40% of its dietary intake. Today, meat makes up little more than 10% of its diet. Whenever possible, the brown bear will consume sheep.
-Ancient wolf called the mega-faunal wolf, preyed on large game such as horses, bison, and very young mammoths. They were larger and stronger than the modern wolf and were equipped with bigger teeth and more powerful jaws. They were genetically distinct from modern ones. Data shows ancient wolves that ate these particular species of fauna crossed the land Bridge from Asia to America . There, it found a role as a middle-sized hunter, sandwiched between a smaller species, the coyote, and a larger one, the dire wolf. When the large dire wolf died out, the gray wolf split into two groups. One filled the gap left behind by the large predators by evolved stronger skulls and teeth. The other carried on in the slender and fast mold and the dog may have been derived from these type of ancient wolves in the late Ice Age.