The collection of flint implements described in this chapter is limited to those which the expedition members could bring back to Japan, thanks to the courtesy of the Departments of Antiquities of Syria and Lebanon, out of nearly 10,000 flints collected during the field research. They number about 2,000 from Syria and 2,500 from Lebanon.

The purpose of our research was to discover cave sites which would be suitable for the scientific excavation scheduled for 1970 by our team, Therefore, the analysis of the flints collected at various sites aims at clarifying the conditions of deposit at these sites and the relative positions of certain industries to which these flints are related, from the so-called type-chronological view.

However, the flints collected this time are actually all surface materials and their classification is based on typology alone. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to relate the flints classified by typology alone to certain industries. Furthermore, some of the sites yielded very few flints or only crude ones. In these cases, it is impossible to discuss the deposit of the sites.

In short, it is hoped that even if in some places of this chapter there are statements about facts which may sound more like conclusions, they are usually to be interpreted only provisionally. We believe that any conclusions to be reached or points which remain unsolved will be either revised, confirmed or clarified when we conduct the forthcoming scientific excavations in the stratified deposits in this region.