Continuity and disruption in the ancient Hejaz: an assessment of current archaeological strategies

In this study I review two conflicting scenaria of the history of northwestern Arabia from approximately 1300 to 200 BC and discuss their theoretical and methodological determinants. The still sparse archaeological and historic information on this topic has been used in two quite different ways. On one hand there is the traditional culture historical approach which subordines all social interpretation to the precise strictures of an interrupted ceramic typology, on the other a recent attempt to interpret archaeological and textual data within the theoretical framework of a long-term historical model that integrates the Hejaz into the broader Near Eastern world system. I argue that these two approaches reflect fundamentally different approaches to the study of ancient society and that each incorporates a conceptual approach that necessarily determines its interpretational outcome. Furthermore I conclude that use of an inclusive theoretical model permits better integration of the growing archaeological and textual information bases and obviates much of the inconsistency and interpretational naivity that unavoidably derives from the culture historica approach.