The ways in which the people who moved during the collapse contributed to the formation of Iron Age Mediterranean cultures are complex and only partially understood.

The internal perspective of the Sea Peoples — their own understanding of who they were, why they moved, and what they hoped to achieve — remains inaccessible.

No texts from within the Sea Peoples confederation have been discovered, and it is not clear that any such texts existed.

The Egyptian and Near Eastern records preserve the perspective of those who resisted the Sea Peoples, not the perspective of the Sea Peoples themselves.

These remaining gaps are not embarrassments for the field of ancient history but rather indicators of where the most significant future discoveries are likely to be made.