From the Biblical record it is clear that the principal occupants of Palestine at the time of the advent of the Israelites were the Amorites and the Canaanites. Who were these two peoples? Excavations have shown that towards the end of the third millennium nomadic groups disrupted the urban civilization of the Early Bronze Age in Palestine. Delivered in 1963, these lectures describe these groups and show that they can be linked with the Amurru of Syria. They arethus the ancestors of the Biblical Amorites.