This is exactly what the archaeological evidence had suggested: the Philistines who arrived at Ashkelon in the twelfth century BCE had significant genetic ancestry from the Aegean region.

They were not simply the Mycenaean Greeks of mainland Greece, but they were connected genetically to the Aegean world in ways that distinguished them from the Canaanite populations they were living among.

The later Iron Age individuals showed a return toward a profile more similar to the general Levantine population, with the distinctive Aegean component no longer detectable at the same level.

This is consistent with what the archaeological and biblical evidence suggests: the Philistines integrated into the local population over time, adopting the language and many cultural practices of the broader Levantine world while maintaining some distinctive features of their own.