Israel's Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance

The emergence of Israel in Canaan is perhaps the most debated topic in biblical/Syro-Palestinian archaeology, and related fields. Accordingly, it has received a great deal of attention in recent years, both in scholarly literature and in popular publications. Generally speaking, however, the archaeology of ancient Israel is wedged in a paradoxical situation. Despite the large existing database of archaeological finds (from thousands of excavations conducted over an extremely limited area) scholars in this (sub)discipline typically do not engage in theoretical (anthropological) discussions, thus exposing a large gap between it and other branches of archaeology, in this respect. Numerous archaeologically oriented studies of Israelite ethnicity are still conducted largely in the spirit of the culture history school, and are absent of thorough reference to the work of more recent critics, which, at best, make a selected appearance in these analyses. Israel's Ethnogenesis provides an anthropologically-oriented perspective on the discussion of Israel's ethnogenesis. This monograph incorporates detailed archaeological data and relevant textual sources, within an anthropological framework. Moreover, it contributes to the archeology of ethnicity, a field which currently attracts significant attention of archaeologists and anthropologists all over the world. Making use of an unparalleled archaeological database from ancient Israel, this volume has much to offer to the ongoing debate over the nature of ethnicity in general, and to the understudied question of how ethnic groups evolve (ethnogenesis), in particular.