The Sea Peoples: The Ancient Mystery That Stumped Historians For Centuries — And What Modern Science Finally Revealed About Who They Really Were

The Luwian language — spoken across much of western and southern Anatolia during the Bronze Age — provides one possible cultural connection.

Several of the proposed identifications of Sea Peoples groups point toward Luwian-speaking areas: the Lukka (Lycia), the Denyen (possibly the Adana region), and the Teresh (possibly a Luwian-speaking coastal group).

If the Sea Peoples included significant numbers of Luwian speakers from western Anatolia, this would help explain both their maritime capability (the Anatolian coast had been a seafaring zone for centuries) and their presence in the eastern Mediterranean.

The ancient DNA evidence for Anatolia during this period is still developing.