1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed

by Eric H. Cline

DNA evidence from Ashkelon that was referenced briefly above. It comes from the remains of four infants, buried under the floors of Philistine houses in Ashkelon during the late twelfth century BC. They cannot themselves have been part of the original waves of invaders ca. 1207 and 1177 BC, since they would not yet have been born, but are instead from a generation or two later. The DNA was recovered from the inner ear (i.e., the petrous bone) of the infants; along with teeth, this is the location that most often yields good traces of ancient DNA. It turns out that all four infants have mixed DNA, with somewhere between one-quarter and more than one-half (43.1 ± 19.2%) identifiable as “southern European,” reflecting ancestors who had come most likely from Bronze Age Crete or, less likely, from Sardinia or Spain, according to the geneticists. The remainder of the infants’ DNA matched the local population, meaning that the Canaanites “had quickly mated with their new neighbors.” Thus, these infants appear to be the direct descendants of Philistines who had initially migrated to, and then assimilated with, the local Canaanites.49