History of ancient Israel and Judah
The Merneptah stele, erected by an Egyptian pharaoh about 1200 BC, contains the first record of the name Israel: "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not." This Israel, identified as a people, were probably in the northern part of the central highlands. As chaos spread, people went to live in the previously unsettled highlands: surveys have identified more than 300 small settlements, most of them new and the largest with a population of no more than 300, in the Palestinian highlands during Iron Age I. The villages were bigger and more numerous  in the northern regions (biblical Manasseh and Ephraim), although no settlements can be described as urban. The total settled population at the beginning of the period was about 20,000, and double this number by the end. Nevertheless, while Iron Age I villages with features such as four-roomed houses, collar-rim store jars, and hewn water-cisterns are counted as Israelite when found in the highlands, it is in fact impossible to differentiate these from Canaanite sites of the same period; nor is it possible to distinguish between Hebrew and Canaanite inscriptions down to the 10th century.