You gotta watch that fertility rate...

in Late Bronze age women, that is; it might just have skyrocketed.

Huh? OK, here's the deal:

Until someone can demonstrate that Canaanite women in the Late Bronze/Iron Age transition experienced increased fertility or that the infant morality rate shifted drastically, we must still credit Iron Age I population increases to migration.&mdash: Steven Ortiz in Critical Issues in Early Israelite History, page 201

<idle musing>
Yep; you gotta watch that fertility rate, it could just skyrocket for no reason. That has to be it; to credit the biblical explanation takes far too much faith! After all, if the Exodus happened, then God might actually be the cause of something; if that is true, then he might have a claim on your life. Can't have that now, can we?
</idle musing>