PRECONDITIONS FOR MIGRATION

Abstract

We may take it as axiomatic that no one leaves home and embarks on colonization for fun. – Graham 1982: 157 PUSH AND PULL FACTORS AFFECTING MIGRATION With an almost universal consensus on the supporting paradigm of thousands of Philistines migrating mainly by boats, but also by land, during the course of a relatively short time (Chapter 1), there has been little attempt to study the migration process itself – that which occurred before the first migrant hit the shores of Philistia. It is astonishing that so little has been written on the cause for this migration, considering how important the question of causality is in any anthropological or historical study of migration. Furthermore, a rigorous debate on the number of Philistine migrants and on the power relations between the Philistine settlers and the Egyptians in Canaan (Chapter 8) has not been followed by a close scrutiny of the means that were available for migration: the organizational abilities needed to conduct mass migration as well as transport, routes, and information. Although it may be some time before these significant lacunae are filled in, it is possible to offer here some direction for the study of causality, possible sea and land routes from the Aegean to the Levant, and the logistics of migration in the twelfth century bce . Insights into the potential to carry out different forms of migration and other interactions, as well as an understanding of which forms of migration were unlikely, may prove helpful when material culture assemblages from the vast area between the Aegean, Anatolia, Cyprus, and the Levant (Chapter 5) are analyzed for signs of interactions.