Because of a pleasant climate, level topography, fe.... lake river

Because of a pleasant climate, level topography, fertile soil, and relatively abundant water, the rivers flowing into the lake and the adjacent plains have throughout history been the source of livelihood for various peoples. At El-?Ubeidiya, 2 miles (3 km) south of the lake, lacustrine formations dating from about 400,000 to 500,000 years ago have revealed prehistoric tools and two human fragments, which are among the oldest in the Middle East. In the 1st century the region was rich and populated; the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote of nine cities on the shores of the lake in ancient times, but of these only has survived. Tiberias, on the western shore, was one of the four Jewish holy cities, and Kefar Na?um ( ), near the northwestern shore, has preserved one of the most beautiful synagogues of the Galilee region, dating from the 2nd and 3rd centuries . In the mid-eastern sections, the cliffs of the Plateau of Golan overlook the lake; the plateau reappears again in ! the southeast, becoming larger as it approaches the valley of the Yarmuk River, a tributary that has its confluence with the Jordan a few miles to the south of the lake. Also to the south, the Plain of al-Ghawr begins, but the Sea of Galilee is separated from it by a narrow ridge through which the Jordan River flows. During the last pluvial period, about 20,000 years ago, a great lake, called the Lake of Lisan, covered the region. In the rivers associated with the lake and at the bottom of the lake itself are many mineral deposits. The lake's fish life has an affinity with that of the eastern African lakes. In the 1960s the Sea of Galilee became the starting point of the National Water Carrier (also called Kinneret-Negev Conduit), a canal that conveys water from the Jordan River to Israel's densely populated coastal region, as well as south to the Negev Desert. lake river