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Near Eastern wild boars possess a characteristic DNA signature. Unexpectedly, wild boars from Israel have the DNA sequences of European wild boars and domestic pigs. To understand how this anomaly evolved, we sequenced DNA from ancient and modern pigs from Israel. Pigs from Late Bronze Age (until ca. 1150 BCE) in Israel shared haplotypes of modern and ancient Near Eastern pigs. European haplotypes became dominant only during the Iron Age (ca. 900 BCE). This raises the possibility that European pigs were brought to the region by the Sea Peoples who migrated to the Levant at that time. Then, a complete genetic turnover took place, most likely because of repeated admixture between local and introduced European domestic pigs that went feral. Severe population bottlenecks likely accelerated this process. Introductions by humans have strongly affected the phylogeography of wild animals, and interpretations of phylogeography based on modern DNA alone should be taken with caution.

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The Hebrew Bible and other ancient Near Eastern texts describe Egyptian, Aramean, Assyrian, and Babylonian military campaigns to the Southern Levant during the 10th to sixth centuries BCE. Indeed, many destruction layers dated to this period have been unearthed in archaeological excavations. Several of these layers are securely linked to specific campaigns and are widely accepted as chronological anchors. However, the dating of many other destruction layers is often debated, challenging the ability to accurately reconstruct the different military campaigns and raising questions regarding the historicity of the biblical narrative. Here, we present a synchronization of the historically dated chronological anchors and other destruction layers and artifacts using the direction and/or intensity of the ancient geomagnetic field recorded in mud bricks from 20 burnt destruction layers and in two ceramic assemblages. During the period in question, the geomagnetic field in this region was extremely anomalous with rapid changes and high-intensity values, including spikes of more than twice the intensity of today’s field. The data are useful in the effort to pinpoint these short-term variations on the timescale, and they resolve chronological debates regarding the campaigns against the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the relationship between the two kingdoms, and their administrations.

Recent discussion of the formation and alteration of Philistine identity in the Levantine Iron Age continues to reference primarily pottery styles and dietary practices. Such traditional narratives propose that the Philistines comprised one group of the 'Sea Peoples' and that the cultural boundary markers that distinguished their society in the Iron Age I (twelftheleventh century BC) diminished in importance and disappeared suddenly in the early Iron Age IIA (tenth century BC), with the ascendancy of the Judahite kingdom. Based on data from the Levant (especially Philistia), the Aegean and Cyprus, we argue for a more complex understanding of the Philistines who came to the region with an identity that drew on, and continued to engage with, a broad range of foreign artefact styles and cultural practices with non-Levantine connections. Concurrently they incorporated local cultural attributes, at least until the late ninth century BC, a feature that we argue was unrelated to the supposed tenth century expansion of the Judahite kingdom.