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Scholars say Philistine genes help solve biblical mystery
www.wpri.com ^ | Posted: Jul 3, 2019 / 02:13 PM EDT / Updated: Jul 3, 2019 / 02:21 PM EDT | by: ILAN BEN ZION

Posted on 07/03/2019 1:16:54 PM PDT by Red Badger

JERUSALEM — Goliath the Greek? Human remains from an ancient cemetery in southern Israel have yielded precious bits of DNA that a new study says help prove the European origin of the Philistines — the enigmatic nemeses of the biblical Israelites.

The Philistines mostly resided in five cities along the southern coast of what is today Israel and the Gaza Strip during the early Iron Age, around 3,000 years ago. In the Bible, David fought the Philistine giant Goliath in a duel, and Samson slew a thousand of their warriors with the jawbone of an ass.

Many archaeologists have proposed they migrated to the coast of the ancient Near East during a period of upheaval at the end of the Late Bronze Age, around 1200 B.C.

The Philistines emerged as other societies around the eastern Mediterranean collapsed, possibly because of a cataclysmic intersection of climate change and man-made disasters. Philistine ceramics bear similarities to styles found in the Aegean, but concrete evidence of their geographic origins has remained elusive.

Now, a study of genetic material extracted from skeletons unearthed in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon in 2013 has found a DNA link. It connects the Philistines to populations in southern Europe during the Bronze Age.

The study, spearheaded by researchers from Germany’s Max Planck Institute and Wheaton College in Illinois, was published Wednesday in the research journal Science Advances.

The biblical account relates that the Philistines originally hailed from a distant isle. An Egyptian temple built by Rameses III bears reliefs of battles with “Sea Peoples” who appeared on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean. One group listed in the Egyptian text is strikingly similar to the Hebrew name for Philistines. Excavations of Philistine sites have found ceramics and architecture that differed from those of their neighbors in ancient Canaan.

But archaeologists can’t be absolutely certain that different pots mean different people.

Eric Cline, an archaeologist from George Washington University specializing in the Late Bronze Age in the Near East, said conclusive evidence has eluded scientists until now — even if the material remains have indicated that the Philistines migrated to the Levant from the Aegean around 1200 B.C.

Cline, who was not involved in the study, is the author of “1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed,” which examines the period when the Philistines arrived. He called the paper’s findings “extremely exciting and very important” by helping resolve the long-standing mystery about their origins.

“We were all hoping that it might be possible to get genetic information like this,” he said. “Now we have scientific confirmation from DNA that the Philistines do indeed most likely come from that region.”

The researchers looked at DNA from 10 skeletons excavated from the ancient cemetery in Ashkelon, one of the Philistine seaports.

Using Carbon-14 dating technology, three were determined to be from the centuries before the Philistines’ presumed arrival around 1200 B.C., four were from the period immediately afterward, and three dated to centuries further on, the late Iron Age.

The study found that the remains dating to the early Iron Age — the period associated with many of the stories involving Philistines in the Bible — were genetically distinct from their Levantine neighbors, and had close similarities with populations in southern Europe.

“We see in their DNA a European component from the West that appears in a substantial enough way that we can demonstrate it statistically, we can show that it’s different,” said Daniel Master, an archaeologist with Wheaton College who headed the expedition in Ashkelon. “It basically says the people came from outside, not just the style of pottery.”

He said the findings were “direct evidence” that the cultural change found in Philistine cities “reflected the migration of a group of people.”

The DNA from the later individuals found they had some southern European genes, but appeared much closer to the surrounding Canaanite population.

“There was this pulse of people coming in, and then they kind of mixed in into the local population, so a few hundred years later they are almost indistinguishable” from the surrounding Levantine gene pool, said Michal Feldman, an archeogeneticist at the Planck Institute and one of the paper’s lead authors.

The results point to a possible southern European origin for the Philistines — anywhere from Cyprus to Sardinia — but further study of ancient remains is needed to narrow down the search.

“Until we have more samples from the neighboring regions,” and from the Philistines themselves, said Feldman, “I don’t think we can pinpoint better their homeland or homelands.”


TOPICS: History; Religion; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: 1177bc; amos9v7; archaeology; ashkelon; bronzeagecollapse; caphtor; carians; catastrophism; cyprus; deuteronomy2v23; epigraphyandlanguage; ericcline; erichcline; genesis10v14; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; hurrians; israel; jeremiah47v4; minoans; mycenaeans; peopleofthesea; philistia; philistine; philistines; seapeople; seapeoples
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To: Vigilanteman

Thanks good possibilities.


101 posted on 07/05/2019 10:44:26 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (KAG! Keep America Great! r\Vote for President Trump in 2020! KAG! Kworkeep America Great, Again!)
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To: Garth Tater; Vigilanteman; SunkenCiv

Thanks to everyone for their excellent and sometimes humorous inputs on a complicated issue, DNA and genealogy.

A female sibling was told by a supposedly good genealogist that our Indian DNA was not showing up because Indian Women married our male ancestors.

Also, the since my sibling and her DNA tested daughter are women, that we might not see any Indian DNA due to the women from the past DNA to our current living women.

Like Garth, my mind just freezes up with this issue? (I still know which bathroom to use when away from our home!)

Is this female Genealogist possible correct?


102 posted on 07/05/2019 10:54:06 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (KAG! Keep America Great! r\Vote for President Trump in 2020! KAG! Kworkeep America Great, Again!)
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To: Grampa Dave
Sounds like you might have a good DOCUMENTARY genealogist who knows next to nothing about DNA science. They are two entirely different skillsets.

DNA science is, by no means settled. We know a lot more about it than we did a decade or so ago and I'm aware that certain markers are prevalent in female lines whereas others are prevalent in male lines.

I am also aware that siblings from the same parents may show different DNA results for the same reason that one may be brown eyed and one may be green eyed . . . the luck of the draw. But my mind freezes up with this explanation as well.

Documentary genealogy (where I'm pretty good) and DNA science (where I am not) are more different than brain surgery and proctology. A reputable genealogist should recognize this.

103 posted on 07/05/2019 11:19:44 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (The politicized state destroys all aspects of civil society, human kindness and private charity.)
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To: Vigilanteman

BOL!

I had a mind freeze also.


104 posted on 07/05/2019 11:22:52 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (KAG! Keep America Great! r\Vote for President Trump in 2020! KAG! Kworkeep America Great, Again!)
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To: Grampa Dave
Dang those sexist auto corrects! ;^) Hank was quite a character. Had some issues. His first marriage lasted 14 years I think, the next five averaged a bit under three years I think. As he lay dying, he was surrounded by former property of various friends he'd had executed over the years. Kinda sad, really.

105 posted on 07/05/2019 11:01:03 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: yarddog

Yes he did, when he was on the run from Saul..................


106 posted on 07/08/2019 6:14:15 AM PDT by Red Badger (We are headed for a Civil War. It won't be nice like the last one....................)
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To: Openurmind
It was an accident they survived...

OR.....It was planned.... thousands of years in advance.................

107 posted on 07/08/2019 6:19:09 AM PDT by Red Badger (We are headed for a Civil War. It won't be nice like the last one....................)
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To: Red Badger

Well... If you go by the “official narrative”... It would have been pure accident that a species supposedly from Africa dependent on sunlight just happened to find sustenance in the north that was high in vitamin D and continued to survive. :)

Or... There is more to the story. :)


108 posted on 07/08/2019 7:47:43 AM PDT by Openurmind
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To: chajin; crusher2013; Red Badger; All

Actually this was 300 years after the Thera volcano. Perhaps some were people who left Knosos when that civilization collapsed. The volcano caused a tsunami which no doubt destroyed their ship building facilities and killed many of their skilled ship builders. While there were ships at sea which no doubt returned to port, the damage was too severe to maintain a strong maritime civilization, and it made sense to move from an island to a mainland.


109 posted on 07/08/2019 10:21:49 PM PDT by gleeaikin
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Geneticists have scanned the genomes of 173 Armenians from Armenia and Lebanon and compared them with those of 78 other populations from around the world. They found that the Armenians are a mix of ancient populations whose descendants now live in Sardinia, Central Asia and several other regions... Armenians share 29 percent of their DNA ancestry with Otzi, a man whose 5,300-year-old mummy emerged in 1991 from a melting Alpine glacier. Other genetically isolated populations of the Near East, like Cypriots, Sephardic Jews and Lebanese Christians, also share a lot of ancestry with the Iceman, whereas other Near Easterners, like Turks, Syrians and Palestinians [sic], share less.
Armeniapedia
The name Goliath, like Achish, is not Semitic, but rather Anatolian (McCarter 1980, 291, Mitchell 1967, 415; Wainwright 1959, 79). Not all agree though; the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (2:524) proposes that Goliath may have been a remnant of one of the aboriginal groups of giants of Palestine who now were in the employ of the Philistines. [1. Naveh (1985, 9, 13 n. 14) states that Ikausu, the name of the king of Ekron in the seventh century b.c., is a non-Semitic name that can be associated with that of the Achish of Gath in David's time. The name in the seventh century has a shin ending that is non-West Semitic.]
Giving Goliath His Due, Marco Polo Monographs, No. 7. | 'Philistines' | by Neal Bierling | foreword by Joe E. Seger

110 posted on 08/18/2020 7:04:41 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Red Badger

DNA does not indicate where you are from, but where you have been.


111 posted on 02/12/2024 10:12:51 PM PST by linMcHlp
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