Ugarit was destroyed around 1200 bc during the Trojan wars and in that timeline the number of people living in the hills of Israel shot up. I believe as well as many scholars that the Hebrews were Phoenicians that live north of israel and were pushed south by war and empire building like that of the Hittites. The people of Ugrait and Elba spoke ancient Hebrew. These people moved south and were refugees in the hills of Israel until they became numerous enough to become a distict people in thier own right. But the tribe of Judea never got along with the northern Hebrews. And yes there are a lot of unearthed statues of Asherah , the wife or consort of Yahweh. Some people believe that the tetrogramitan ywhw stands for the pantheon of El,Baal,Anat,Asherah. One reason for this is the word elohim means gods not god, just speculation.