History of ancient Israel and Judah
The causes of the Bronze Age collapse - which extended throughout the eastern Mediterranean - are obscure.  Drought, famine and other stresses may be behind the widespread population movements of the time.  Whatever the cause, several important Canaanite cities were destroyed at the end of the Bronze Age (over a period of more than a century), and Canaanite culture was gradually absorbed into that of the Philistines, Phoenicians and Israelites.