When Did the Shephelah Become Judahite?

AbstractThe paper maintains that during the Iron I and much of the early Iron IIA the Shephelah was inhabited by independent—or at least autonomous— rural kinship groups that were not dominated by the 'United Monarchy'; that over the course of the early Iron IIA the region became increasingly politically dominated by the city-state of Gath; and that it was only after the destruction of Gath by Hazael in the 9th century BCE that the Shephelah eventually became part of the kingdom of Judah.