Hadean
The Hadean () is a geologic eon of the Earth pre-dating the Archean. It began with the formation of the Earth about 4.6 billion years ago and ended, as defined by the ICS, 4 billion years ago. , the ICS describes its status as ""informal"". Geologist Preston Cloud coined the term in 1972, originally to label the period before the earliest-known rocks on Earth. W. Brian Harland later coined an almost synonymous term, the "Priscoan period", from "priscus", the Latin word for "ancient". Other, older texts simply refer to the eon as the Pre-Archean.
History of the Mediterranean region
While the cultural advances during the Bronze Age had mostly been confined to the eastern parts of the Mediterranean, 
with the Iron Age, the entire coastal region surrounding the Mediterranean now becomes involved, significantly due to the Phoenician expansion from the Levant, beginning in ca. the 12th century.
Fernand Braudel remarked in "The Perspective of the World" that Phoenicia was an early example of a "world-economy" surrounded by empires. The high point of Phoenician culture and sea power is usually placed ca. 1200–800 BC.
Many of the most important Phoenician settlements had been established long before this: Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Arwad, and Berytus, all appear in the Amarna tablets.