cemetery was discovered near Ashkelon, containing more than 150 dead buried in oval-shaped graves. A 2019 genetic study found that, while all three Ashkelon populations derive most of their ancestry from the local Semitic-speaking Levantine gene pool, the early Iron Age population was genetically distinct due to a European-related admixture; this genetic signal is no longer detectable in the later Iron Age population. According to the authors, the admixture was likely due to a "gene flow from a European-related gene pool" during the Bronze to Iron Age transition, which supports the theory that a migration event occurred. Philistine DNA shows similarities to that of ancient Cretans, but it is impossible to specify the exact place in Europe from where Philistines had migrated to Levant, due to limited number of ancient genomes available for study, "with 20 to 60 per cent similarity to DNA from ancient skeletons from Crete and Iberia and that from modern people living in Sardinia." Scholarly consensus Most scholars agree that the Philistines were of Greek origin, and that they came from Crete and the rest of the Aegean Islands or, more generally, from the area of modern-day Greece. This view is based largely upon the fact that archaeologists, when digging up strata dated to the Philistine time-period in the coastal plains and in adjacent areas, have found similarities in material culture (figurines, pottery, fire-stands, etc.) between Aegean-Greek culture and that of Philistine culture, suggesting that they were originally one and the same people. A minority, dissenting, claim that the similarities in material culture is only the result of acculturation, during their entire 575 years of existence among Canaanite (Phoenician), Israelite, and perhaps other seafaring peoples. The "Peleset" from Egyptian inscriptions Since 1846, scholars have connected the biblical Philistines with the Egyptian "" inscriptions. All five of these appear from 1150 BCE to 900 BCE just as archaeological references to Kinaḫḫu, or Ka-na-na (Canaan), come to an end; and since 1873 comparisons were drawn between them and to the Aegean "Pelasgians." Archaeological research to date has been unable to corroborate a mass settlement of Philistines during the Ramesses III era. "Walistina/Falistina" and "Palistin" in Syria Pro A Walistina is mentioned in Luwian texts already variantly spelled Palistina. This implies dialectical variation, a phoneme ("f"?) inadequately described in the script, or both. Falistina was a kingdom somewhere on the Amuq plain, where the Amurru kingdom had held sway