This maritime capability helps explain why the Sea Peoples phenomenon is concentrated along the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean.

People who could travel by sea could leapfrog distances and obstacles that would have stopped land-based migrants.

The connections between the various Sea Peoples groups — the fact that Egyptian records describe them as acting in coordination, however loosely — may reflect the communications and relationships that maritime communities maintain across the sea.

The feathered headdresses that the Egyptian artists record for multiple Sea Peoples groups may have been a maritime cultural marker — a way of identifying sailors from specific ports or cultural traditions in the multi-cultural commercial world of the Bronze Age Mediterranean.

In an era when sea trade brought together people from many different backgrounds on the same docks and ships, distinctive markers of cultural identity would have been important for identification and for maintaining group cohesion.