The Philistines and their Material Culture in Context: Future Directions of Historical Biblical Archaeology for the Study of Cultural Transmission

This paper reviews different methodological and theoretical approaches to culture transmission in general and as applied to the Philistines in particular. Recent archaeological evidence is then summarized that challenges simplistic 20th-century Eurocentric hyper-diffusionist migration interpretations and linear narratives that portray the Philistines as a group of ‘Mycenaean’ refugees fleeing the Greek mainland and/or the western Aegean. New directions for future research regarding the transmission of Aegean-style material culture in the eastern Mediterranean are proposed and their implications for the biblical Philistines. In this way, this paper contributes to efforts to forge a more pragmatic historical Biblical Archaeology for the southern Levant.