This is now established by ancient DNA evidence from Ashkelon, confirming decades of archaeological inference.

The Philistines were not simply Canaanites who adopted Aegean-style pottery; they were people who came from a place genetically connected to the Aegean world.

Third, the Sea Peoples were not a unified ethnic group.

The Egyptian records list multiple different named groups, and the archaeological evidence shows different material culture traditions associated with different groups at different locations.

What made them the “Sea Peoples” was their common medium — the sea — and their common context — the Bronze Age Collapse — not a shared ethnic identity.

Fourth, many of the Sea Peoples were likely refugees from the Bronze Age Collapse rather than its primary agents.