Article: Pigs and the Sea Peoples

Pigs and the Sea Peoples

This article ties into other recent research into a series of severe droughts in the eastern Mediterranean around 1250 to 1100 BCE.  Researchers now theorize that the droughts created widespread famine and the collapse of Bronze Age civilizations around the eastern Mediterranean including the Mycenaeans, Hittites, etc.  Egyptian records speak of an invasion of Sea Peoples who appear to be displaced survivors seeking food and new homes.  The article on the genetics of Israeli pigs and wild boars appears to show an influx around the time of the Sea Peoples of European pigs.  Before this period the bones of pigs from the region show kinship with other, Near Eastern pig breeds.  So it appears the Sea Peoples brought their pigs with them, destroyed some of the Canaanite cities along the coast, and settled there.  Others have pointed to similarities between Cretan and Mycenaean pottery and the early pottery of the Philistines.