Medinet Habu: Oxcarts, Ships, and Migration Theories

Nothing Lasts Forever: Environmental Discourses on the Collapse of Past Societies

“…Other explanations emphasize possible increases in regional and local conflict and instability (Dickinson 2006a, pp. 54-56), shifting trade routes or economics (Sherratt 2001(Sherratt , 2003, or a failure of the eastern Mediterranean system as a whole (Bachhuber and Roberts 2009;Betancourt 2000;Bryce 2005a, b;Drews 1993Drews , 2000Parkinson and Galaty 2009;Popham 1994;Stiebing 1980;Van de Mieroop 2010, pp. 235-253).…”

The Development of Dagan: A Sketch

“…This theory rejects the "ethnic" immigration of a people group as a modern theoretical construct which does not have a basis in either the textual (Drews 1998) or archaeological (Bunimovitz 1990) records. The "Sea Peoples" are understood to be a "socio-economic phenomenon" (Bauer 1998, 151) arising out of the increasingly decentralized Meditterranian trade network at the end of the Late Bronze Age (Sherratt 1998;Bauer 1998;Burstein 1996;Drews 2000).…”

“…This theory rejects the "ethnic" immigration of a people group as a modern theoretical construct which does not have a basis in either the textual (Drews 1998) or archaeological (Bunimovitz 1990) records. The "Sea Peoples" are understood to be a "socio-economic phenomenon" (Bauer 1998, 151) arising out of the increasingly decentralized Meditterranian trade network at the end of the Late Bronze Age (Sherratt 1998;Bauer 1998;Burstein 1996;Drews 2000). 17 As palatial control of the trade network on Crete, Cyprus and at Ugarit began to decrease, elite individuals who could combine institutional resources with privately financed trading networks increased in power (Sherratt 1998, 295-96; for an example of such an individual, Sinaranu of Ugarit, see Heltzer 1989;.…”

The Development Process of Philistine Material Culture: Assimilation, Acculturation and Everything in between

“…Dothan and Zukerman 2004), and others contesting the very immigration of any such group (e.g., Muhly 1992;Sherratt 1998;Drews 2000). The various findings from Philistia, including the pottery, unique architectural features, dietary habits and other aspects of material culture that are foreign to the Southern Levant, together with the historical record documenting the events of the early Iron Age, strongly argue for the migration of the Philistines particularly, if not exclusively, from the Aegean (Barako 2000; for the heterogeneity of this group see Brug 1985;Harrison 1988).…”