The Philistines as a Social Phenomenon

From a cultural point of view, end of the Late Bronze Age was a watershed process, separating between the era of Bronze Age civilizations and world system and the beginning of the era of nation states in the Iron Age. In the Levant the collapse of the Canaanite city state system was accompanied by strong Aegean influence, very likely the migration of people from the realm of Aegean culture, which together with the local communities formed new communities of their own: the Philistines. With the final publication of early Iron Age strata from Philistine sites of Ashdod and Ekron, and preliminary publication of finds from Ashkelon and Gath (Tel es-Safi), it is now possible to reconstruct the social processes which made the 12th and 11th centuries BC an era of experimentation, recovery and transformation. This lecture will discuss phenomena of economic and cultural adaptations to the post-urban reality of the 12th century, as well as aspects of local responses to the Aegean migration, which led to the formation of a multi-cultural society in Philistia.