Can't speak to your quoted study; haven't had time to look at. But, briefly, we've just had fifty years (with its roots in The Enlightenment) of the information elite intensely marginalizing and deriding Christianity, and painting it's adherents as ignorant putzes. Since you are maybe in your late 40's to 50's, this mental climate has no doubt informed your world view as well as many others; I.e., the researchers.
Previous well-documented archeological research findings have not only not refuted any Biblical stories, persons, places, or events, but have corroborated them. Just one example is found in the Gulf of Aqaba (AKA the Red Sea) where robotic submarines have shown the sea bottom strewn with Egyptian chariots. See Exodus.
