Hybridity,Hapiru, and Ethnicity in 2nd MillenniumBCEWestern Asia 143the past as expressed in the archaeological record were rooted in nineteenth- and
early-twentieth-century nationalistic notions of identity, which emphasized traits of
culturally and racially homogeneous groups such as lineage, language, or religion. This
approach is also reflected in the translation of the Greek wordethnos, as “nation,”
from which the modern term “ethnicity” is derived. In reaction to these primordial or
kinship-based understandings of ethnicity, studies emphasizing the situational aspects of
group identity, or even questioning the existence of ethnicity in the pre-modern past,
dominated the scholarly literature during the later decades of the twentieth century.
More recent anthropological and archaeological literature has tended to emphasize
the fluid, contextual, and constructed nature of ethnicity and social identity, while
recognizing its centrality in creating a sense of identity and potential as a powerful
political tool (Emberling 1997; Jones 1997; Killebrew 2005a: 8–10 with references).
During the past decade, post-colonial approaches, including hybridity and creolization
that emphasize concepts of cultural mixture, have entered the archaeological dialogue
on ethnicity (see, e.g., Gosden 2001; Stockhammer 2012; van Dommelen 2012).
These concepts explore alternatives to unilinear models of assimilation and acculturation
that dominated twentieth-century research on cultural change and identity, while
also addressing issues regarding the fluidity of ethnicity. However, the application of
these post-colonial theories to the archaeological record is being challenged. Other
frameworks, such as transculturalism, are being proposed as more suitable models for
understanding the formation and expression of some ethnically defined groups in this
region (see, e.g., Hitchcock 2011).
What emerges from these studies is the multifarious nature of ethnicity, which develops
within specific primordial, historical, cultural, socioeconomic, geographical, environ-
mental, ideological, and chronological contexts. Most ethnically defined groups in the
historical record are characterized by a common ancestry—actual or perceived—and
a constructed past. Usually, members share a common language and are unified by
ideology or a belief system, often reinforced by common enemies or threatening
situations. However, no one definition, theoretical framework, model, or list of traits
can be uniformly applied. As a result, ethnicity should be understood to be a very
flexible category that must be examined on a case-by-case basis, keeping in mind the
very dynamic and ever-changing nature of a group identity. In addition, ethnicity is
not always clearly signaled or expressed in material culture, complicating efforts to
identify peoples archaeologically. In what follows, I review the primary and secondary
sources relevant to the study of ethnically defined peoples of western Asia, with a focus
on Mesopotamia and the Levant, and examine attempts to locate these groups in the
archaeological record.
Amorites,Hapiru, and Aramaeans
Scholarly literature on ethnicity in ancient Mesopotamia has traditionally highlighted the
divide between nomadic/sedentary or rural/urban populations. This division was based
in part on key ancient Near Eastern texts, such as theCurse of Agadeand the “Weid-
ner Chronicle,” which depict pastoral nomadic groups as threats to sedentary society.
More recent approaches to semi-nomadic/urban populations highlight the symbiotic and