Aphek in the Sharon and the Philistine Northern Frontier

Abstract

Since Philistine finds were first discovered at sites such as Tel Qasile and Tel Gerisa along the Yarkon River, the central sector of Israel's coastal plain has been viewed as part of Philistine territory. Chronologically, it has been established that these sites were settled later than sites located in the heartland of Philistia (mainly Ashdod, Tel Miqne, and Ashkelon). Our knowledge of the Philistine settlement expansion is relatively limited, and we know very little about the people who settled in the Yarkon River Basin in the Iron I. Who were they? Where did they come from? What was their relationship with the main Philistine centers, with neighboring Canaanite cities such as Gezer, and with the population of the highlands to their east? This paper utilizes the homeland-frontier surplus exchange model presented by Paynter in order to reevaluate the social and economic interrelationship between settlements located in Israel's central coastal plain and the Philistines' homelands to the south. This new approach is based mainly on the finds from Iron I Aphek being prepared for final publication by the author.