What are some of the indications that the settlement of Canaan occurred at a slower pace than the conquest stories of the Book of Joshua describe?

Answer 1

AnswerThe Book of Joshua describes an entire nation of Israelites, with 600,000 fighting men swarming into and rapidly overrunning the Canaanite cities, wiping out entire populations at God's command.

Archaeologists and scholars say that the evidence shows an almost unpopulated Canaanite hinterland, devoid of walled cities, until a gradual influx of population in the thirteenth century BCE. The initial population was quite small and it took centuries for the newcomers to establish cities in the region. It is principally the evidence in the ground that indicates that the settlement of what would become Israel and Judah occurred at a slower pace than the conquest stories of the Book of Joshua describe.