The ecological-evolutionary theory, migration, settler colonialism, sociology of violence and the origins of ancient Israel

Abstract This paper looks at the question of the origins of ancient Israel from the perspective of four social-scientific based approaches. These are the ecological-evolutionary theory developed by Gerhard Lenski, theories of migration and settler colonialism and a sociological approach to violence developed by Siniša Malešević. It shows how the four theories fit together well and provide a comparative framework for interpreting both biblical and archaeological data, rendering it plausible to see early Israel as a settler colonial agrarian frontier society that was considerably based on migration from outside and where violence played a significant part in the formation and development of that society.


Introduction
As is generally well known, the question of the origins of ancient Israel has been a subject of a great amount of scholarly discussion and debate. The debate is of significance as the concept of ancient PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT This paper examines the origins of ancient Israel. Except for general historical information, the question is important for the self-understanding of a variety of religious communities, such as Christians, Jews and Muslims. But it is also important for people in general as the concept of ancient Israel has exerted great influence on the world through these religions, and latterly through modern Israel and the current political situation in the Middle East. The paper argues that recent social scientific approaches that are based on comparing human societies across time and space, especially from the perspective of social stratification, migration, colonialism and violence can illuminate the question in a new way. Taking such approaches into account suggests that the ancient Israelites were migrants who settled and conquered an area in the ancient Near East (roughly today's Middle East), forming a new society in the process, with both positive and negative aspects to it.
Israel has served as a foundational basis for the Christian religion. That religion, after its humble beginnings as a small minority movement within ancient Judaism within the Roman empire in the first century of the common era became a state religion in the fourth century and subsequently was spread around the world with Western colonialism, particularly since the arrival of Columbus into the Americas in the last decade of the fifteenth century. Only recently has the role of Christianity in the West been undermined, yet its legacy still strongly influences the world. This influence includes the existence and activities of numerous Christian individuals and organisations outside the West. In addition, the state of modern Israel was established in the middle of the 20th century after centuries of issues around the existence and integration of Jews as a religio-ethnic minority component of a variety of societies since their migrations after the fall of the first and second temples, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust in the 20th century. Religion and the legacy of the Holocaust, itself an important ideological construct in Anglo-Saxon and Western consciousness after the Second World War, continually surrounds the nuclear-armed Jewish state that continues its displacement of the indigenous Palestinian peoples on whose territory it was established. 1 The question of ancient Israel then has bearing on the historical and religious self-understanding of a diverse range of individuals and peoples in a post-christendom and expressly postcolonial world, with important political connotations and implications. In such a climate, any interpretation that may potentially alter currently held views can be seen as controversial. 2 Against this backdrop, one may note that academic interpretation that relates to ancient Israel has hardly been unanimous. Two primary strands of discussion can be distinguished from a conceptual perspective. The first of these strands is the question of how one should view Genesis-Joshua that portrays the creation of the world, the time of the patriarchs, the Egyptian sojourn, the Exodus, the wilderness wanderings and the conquest of Canaan. The books of Judges and Samuel, and parts of the books of Kings supplement the picture given in Genesis-Joshua, with some parallels in the books of Chronicles. The debate about these texts traces back to the time of the Enlightenment, and to modern biblical criticism that can be traced to the 18th century. It was the French physician Jan Astruc who first identified differing sources in the book of Genesis in the 18th century (Wenham, 2003, pp. 162-163), and in the course of the next century or so, the Pentateuch in particular had been divided into four sources of J (a narrative source using the name Yahweh), E (a narrative source using Elohim), D (Deuteronomy) and P (a source consisting of priestly laws and narrative). 3 Importantly, these sources were seen as having originated in differing times, even when the exact extent and dating of the sources was debated. It was the German scholar Julius Wellhausen who suggested a new framework where the J and E sources were seen to originate in 9th-8th centuries BC, Deuteronomy in the seventh century and the Priestly source in the postexilic time (late 6th-5th centuries BCE) (Wellhausen, 1905;Wenham, 1996Wenham, , 1999. Significantly, Wellhausen also suggested that the religion of Israel developed from simple to complex, and free spirited to ritualistic, as attested by the sources. The Wellhausenian framework was subsequently adopted by the majority of Old Testament 4 scholars, and by the 20th century, anyone who wished to be part of the academic guild in Old Testament studies in practice had to follow it. The model did however undergo a number of modifications, such as form criticism represented by Gunkel and von Rad that suggested the existence of oral traditions behind the sources, and in the latter part of the 20th century questions about the extent and date of the sources, was subjected to criticism, with a number of differing theories proposed (Wenham, 1996). Some have tried to more or less jettison the whole source critical approach, speaking for a literary unity of the Pentateuch (Alter, 1981;Whybray, 1987). In the 21st century, an influential trend in source critical approaches to the Pentateuch seems to be a move towards an idea of redactional layers that have successively been added to an early form(s) of the work on the way towards its final completion, with the early form itself possibly consisting of various separate strands initially developing independently. 5 As for the historical books Joshua-2 Kings, they were initially seen as incorporating the Pentateuchal sources, at the same time, Wellhausen and others with him considered Genesis-Joshua as forming a so-called Hexateuch (see von Rad, 1965;Wellhausen, 1899). However, in the 1940s Martin Noth presented his famous theory of the Deuteronomistic History according to which a single historian in the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE wrote Deuteronomy-2 Kings based on sources available to him (Noth, 1991). According to such an approach, the Deuteronomistic history was then later in the postexilic time incorporated into Genesis-Numbers to form a continuous narrative from the creation of the world to the Babylonian exile. 6 Noth's theory gained very wide acceptance but was modified and then increasingly challenged towards the end of the 20th century, with the theory being considered as disputed today. Instead, a number of scholars have in essence returned to a concept of a Hexateuch (Otto, 2012, p. 256;Carr, 2011;cf. e.g. Pitkänen, 2010).
Except for these detailed textual considerations, archaeology has provided a further possible source for understanding early Israel, a second main strand of discussion. 7 The development of the archaeological discipline as it relates to the Bible dates back to the latter part of the nineteenth century (see e.g. Moorey, 1991). At first, archaeology in the "Holy Land" was very much driven by the concerns of those interested in the Bible, in trying to illuminate the Bible based on archaeological discoveries and verify the factual claims of the Bible. However, as time went on, archaeology also became very much its own separate discipline, and, what may previously have been called biblical archaeology is now often labelled as Syro-Palestinian archaeology, a separate discipline that is presented as largely independent from biblical studies. 8 And yet, there is still very much interaction between archaeology and biblical studies. Many biblical scholars wish to understand the Bible based on relevant archaeological discoveries, and many archaeologists also explicitly attempt to bring out how their discipline can contribute to biblical understanding (see e.g. Levy, 2010;Mazar, 1992). Importantly, archaeology has had a special relationship with the early Israelite history in general. Once archaeological data from the Southern Levant started to accumulate in any substantial amounts, problems about how it might relate to the Bible started to arise. While events from the period of the judges on were generally seen as reflecting actual history, events earlier than that became suspect from the beginning of the 20th century on. Thus, the book of Joshua stood at the borderline of where going back in time would rather make fact become fiction in the biblical storyline (Maxwell Miller & Hayes, 2006). As part of this, the origins of early Israel became a matter of debate. The conquest model whose most notable proponents were William Albright and his disciple John Bright in the first half of the 20th century had argued for a general veracity of the biblical record, even though it had lowered the date of the conquest to the 13th century instead of the 15th century implied by the biblical chronology. This model was abandoned due to the lack of archaeological evidence for an Israelite conquest at sites such as Ai (Josh 7-8), Jericho (Josh 2, 6), Gibeon (Josh 9) and Arad (Josh 12:14; Num 21:1-3). And, two other possible ways of seeing the process of the Israelite settlement arose. The peaceful infiltration model, with Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth its most notable proponents, suggested that the Israelites were nomads who immigrated to the land from outside. In this, importantly, the immigration was peaceful and did not involve a conquest. Secondly, the peasant's revolt model advocated by George Mendenhall and Norman Gottwald suggested that the Israelites were Canaanites who revolted against the existing socioeconomic structure and withdrew to the highlands to form a new society. 9 Later scholarship has shown problems with all of these models. However, while the peasants revolt model was rejected, the idea of an indigenous origin of the early Israelites was retained. In other words, contemporary scholarship tends to think that Israel was a development indigenous to Canaan (Dever, 2003). That said, for example, a recent detailed archaeological study by Faust argues that at least a significant number of the early Israelites originated from outside the area, allowing even for the inclusion of a group that escaped Egypt, even if Faust does not subscribe to the idea of a conquest. 10 In addition to this set of overall approaches, fairly recently, some scholars have questioned the veracity of the biblical accounts even from the time of the judges on. The most "minimalist" of them argue that the biblical Israel is a scholarly construct from the Persian period (e.g. Davies, 1992;Lemche, 1998;Liverani, 2005;Thompson, 1992). According to this view, very little can really be known about pre-exilic Israel based on biblical documents, including the portrayed time of the United Monarchy during David and Solomon. 11 At the same time, there have been those who would defend the historicity of the biblical materials from the time of Abraham on, even when they would consider Genesis 1-11 as "protohistory" where a link with any actual events is not clear (see e.g. The above brief summary of past scholarship serves to remind that one's view about ancient Israel depends greatly on how one approaches the biblical texts that portray early Israel and how one interprets available archaeological data in the context of those texts. And, this discussion must also be set in the context of the wider role of the concept of ancient Israel, as outlined above. It is not my intention to focus on a detailed further elaboration of the question of texts and archaeology (and e.g. an additional survey of archaeological data) here, also much because I myself have already made a fair bit of comments on the issue previously. 13 Instead, I aim to bring in a further strand to the discussion. This is the use of social scientific, and in particular sociological models for understanding ancient Israel. Such approaches look at the Israelite society as a whole in comparison to what is known about the functioning of human societies in the world across time and space. This differs to some extent from a comparative approach to customs across the ancient Near Eastern world as against the Israelite society that has been enabled by the development of the archaeological discipline. The wider social scientific approach can draw from comparisons across the Near East but goes further and also elevates its theorising to a higher macrolevel. Such theories and approaches were not available to the 19th century scholars who laid the foundation for modern biblical (OT/ HB) scholarship. 14 Therefore, use of social scientific approaches can provide even a very new perspective for the study of ancient Israel that can then serve to even considerably adjust previous results of scholarship. 15 In this respect, and as will be seen below, while it is true that work on the topic has been done previously, 16 some exciting new work that has interesting and important implications for the study of ancient Israel has been published very recently.
However, bringing in a macrosociological approach brings with it its own set of questions. An important issue is that clearly a number of such social scientific theories exist that might potentially be applicable to ancient Israel. 17 I will outline below three approaches that can be potentially useful, together with a fourth one, even if that fourth approach does not at least at present incorporate a single overarching theoretical framework. Such a state in regard to the fourth approach in fact in itself already speaks at least for the possibility of combining a variety of approaches. To date, the variety of approaches to be covered has been scattered across a variety of publications that are not directly related. I hope the discussion here can then contribute by demonstrating how such combination can enhance our understanding of the subject of our study, the emergence of ancient Israel. But it should also contribute towards understanding how a variety of social scientific theories can as such be interlinked and combined. As to the potential question of why specifically these approaches are "the ones" that can and should be chosen and applied to the study of ancient Israel, the ensuing discussion aims to illustrate the appropriateness of such a selection. I will first introduce the Ecological-Evolutionary theory developed by Gerhard Lenski (2005). This theory is very much a macrosociological theory that attempts to compare all societies and their development from an ecological-evolutionary perspective. Lenski's presentation includes comparison with the main alternative theories, together with argumentation for why he thinks his theory has the most of explanatory power (see Lenski, 2005, pp. 125-140). Significantly, the study of ancient Israel has been of interest to Lenski. While formulating his theory over several decades, Lenski did critique the sociological theory on ancient Israel proposed by Gottwald. 18 Interestingly, Lenski wrote on the topic in most detail quite recently, some ten years ago. Except for a renewed critique of Gottwald that on the whole also serves to demonstrate the relatively limited macrosociological nature of Gottwald's theory, Lenski included at the time a suggestion for an alternative theory to that of Gottwald as an application of his own ecological-evolutionary approach (see Lenski, 2005, pp. 147-168), and I will interact with Lenski's thinking below.
Secondly, I will introduce theories of settler colonialism as applied to ancient Israel. Settler colonial studies pertain to specific colonial formations and are a recent development of studies of colonialism that themselves were developed since the Second World war in particular. 19 Theories of settler colonialism can be considered to be proceeding based on a comparative sociological approach as they compare a variety of societies across time and space. However, the questions they ask are not the same and generally not as wide as the ecological-evolutionary approach. At the same time, they relate to the ecological-evolutionary theory in that they basically can be seen as concentrating on issues that relate to intersocietal selection that the ecological-evolutionary theory considers as part of societal evolution. 20 This then would suggest that they can at least potentially be integrated in that theory and may help refine it further. I will make a number of comments in this respect, referring to my previous work in applying theories of settler colonialism to ancient Israel. 21 The third approach I will introduce is migration theories. As already alluded above, these do not, at least not currently so, constitute a single approach (see e.g. Harzig, Hoerder, & Gabaccia, 2009;Manning, 2013). However, they provide a fruitful set of approaches for example in the sense that such recent studies have emphasised the role of migration in human history. They particularly take into account the study of historical sources, archaeology, linguistics and genetics, depending on the availability of each component in each case of migration looked at. 22 And, they cut across the whole of human history across time and space, including in prehistoric times. These studies are particularly interesting as the Israelite documents clearly indicate that migration was an integral part of the formation of early Israel, and, conversely, as many recent studies about early Israel tend to deny the role of migration in its formation. 23 They particularly interlock with settler colonial studies as settler colonial situations typically involve migration. But, migration studies introduce additional considerations. Migration studies also quite naturally intermesh with the Ecological-Evolutionary theory, mostly simply providing an additional set of information to enhance the overall picture about humanity and its history. To my knowledge, no work based on migration studies has been done previously on early Israel. 24 Importantly, some significant advances in migration studies have been made very recently, including due to recent advances in biological sciences, especially genetics (see Bellwood, 2013, p. xv, and cf. below). In terms of presentation, considering migration theories in close relationship with theories of settler colonialism proves a good fit for the study of ancient Israel, and I have therefore focused on these two together in a single section.
Finally, the fourth approach concerns the sociology of war and violence. This has been developed particularly by Siniša Malešević, with very recent publications (Maleševic, 2010). Malešević argues that violence is pervasive to societies and is particularly characterised by concepts of centrifugal ideologisation and cumulative bureaucratisation of coercion, terms that will be elaborated on below. Importantly, he also notes how post-World War II mainstream sociology has eschewed from analysing violence (Maleševic, 2010, pp. 45-46, 49), and this state of affairs may have implications for the eschewing of the possibility of violence in relation to early Israel, including in contrast to the self-presentation of the book of Joshua in particular. The discussion here will attempt to demonstrate how Malešević's approach can serve as an additional source of insights to those offered by the three approaches outlined above. A nice application of his theory has been made in regard to the book of Joshua by Trevor Pomeroy (2014), the purpose here is to offer some further commentary that applies to Genesis-Joshua as a whole and perhaps to even yet wider contexts.
So, all in all, the purpose of this paper is to look at the emergence of ancient Israel through the above four approaches from an integrative perspective. I do not claim that these four approaches provide an exhaustive set, and in fact I will make some limited comments outside them already here, however, I hope that the presentation of related scholarship and data that pertains to early Israel can demonstrate the usefulness of such a combination. 25 Overall, strong arguments have been made recently for eclectic approaches in the field of archaeology anyway (see e.g. Bintliff & Pearce, 2011), and I do not see why this cannot apply to biblical studies also, especially as they invariably incorporate considerations of archaeological data. A main point is that these social scientific models are based on observing how human societies work and establishing patterns accordingly. Such patterns that the models imply can then plausibly be considered as at least potentially applying to ancient Israel by virtue of seeing that society as a human society, no more and no less. Of course, such "extrapolation" must take into account available evidence and consider how that evidence may fit with the models in question. As both biblical and archaeological evidence are not unequivocal in terms of their interpretation, 26 it is valid to engage in interpreting such evidence in the light of related social scientific models. In terms of the biblical materials in this, I think that one should in essence approach them as potentially including information about the past, with suitably detailed considerations of the texts potentially helping to suggest plausible ways of interpreting them, no more and no less. 27 2. The ecological-evolutionary theory and the emergence of ancient Israel As already indicated above, the ecological-evolutionary approach is a macrosociological theory that seeks to compare all human societies in their historical dimension. It was developed in the second half of the 20th century by an American sociologist Gerhard Lenski. The main work that presents the theory is Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology, first published in 1970, and running into several editions. The later editions were co-authored with Patrick Nolan. A 12th edition appeared in 2015, and Lenski himself died that year. Another work that presents the theory is Lenski's Ecological-Evolutionary Theory: Principles and Applications, published in 2005. In that volume Lenski also makes a comparison of his theory with other macrosociological approaches and claims that it offers the most comprehensive coverage of human societies across time and space and has the greatest explanatory power (Lenski, 2005, pp. 125-140).
In terms of situating Lenski's theory in the wider canvas of macrosociological approaches, one can broadly characterise it as a socioecological approach (cf. Layton, 1997). However, it also includes a developmental aspect, that is, Lenski pays special attention to the question of why societies evolve (Lenski, 2005, pp. 6-10). In Lenski's own words, the theory includes a combination of "elements of structural-functional theory, ecological theory, Marxian theory, and evolutionary theory" (Lenski, 2005, p. 10). As regards evolution itself, for Lenski, it does not necessarily equate with blanket "progress" such as e.g. moral progress or improvement of quality of life, but refers to "progressive expansion of the store of information available to the human societies viewed as a whole" (Lenski, 2005, p. 7). Fundamental to the theory is a classification of human societies into types based on their technological progress. There are four main types, hunting and gathering societies, horticultural societies, agrarian societies and industrial societies. The first three are also classified as preindustrial societies. The hunting and gathering societies are non-agricultural, at least primarily so, and the invention and use of the plow essentially distinguish agrarian societies from horticultural ones. In addition, horticultural and agrarian societies each have a more advanced form, and the latter is the form from within which industrialisation commences, leading to industrial societies from the 18th century on. Finally, special minor types of societies of a preindustrial type include fishing societies, herding societies and maritime societies.
While the accumulation of information and technology characterises the evolution of societies, there are other factors to consider. Genetics, culture and environment are also important contributors (Nolan & Lenski, 2015, pp. 29-51). Thus a society will adapt to its environment according to generic human sociobiological characteristics, culture and technology. A further important aspect is societal surplus and any potential resulting societal stratification. Hunting and gathering societies generally do not produce a surplus, with people essentially living from what they hunt and gather on a daily or otherwise short-term basis. People are also mobile and do not accumulate possessions. This then results in a lack of social stratification in that any leader cannot act in a full-time capacity based on a surplus that they might be able to extract from their group. 28 In terms of population, hunting and gathering can also support only a relatively small population density, and coupled with the lack of centralising government, hunting and gathering societies are small. Societies of this type place importance on kinship and tribalism, with such features as fictive kinship and blood revenge included (see Nolan & Lenski, 2015, pp. 102-103, 109, 115). They are the earlies human societies in prehistory, and some of them still exist today, even if they are increasingly under threat, e.g. in today's Amazonia.
Things change with horticultural societies, the first of which appear at about 10000-8000 BCE. They practise farming, even if more by way of swidden (or slash-and-burn) cultivation (Nolan & Lenski, 2015, p. 122). This enables a more stationary lifestyle. That then enables the accumulation of possessions and with it a production of surplus which then can be appropriated by a segment of a population, itself leading to the formation of an elite and with it social stratification. This leads to considerable inequality and impoverishment of population that results in conditions of life for most of the population that are on the whole worse than for members of hunting and gathering societies (cf. Nolan & Lenski, 2015, pp. 142-147). Such loss of standard of living includes a clear increase in the use of slavery and continues and accelerates with agrarian societies, and is only reversed with developed industrial societies (Nolan & Lenski, 2015, pp. 142-147, 177-180, 342-345, 373-381). Surplus and social stratification also leads into increase in trade and commerce and increased specialism (Nolan & Lenski, 2015, pp. 128-129). First record-keeping seems to be established with horticultural societies. Interestingly, the archaeological record suggests an increase of warfare, particularly as the horticultural societies keep developing. Perhaps this is related to declining opportunities for hunting, a traditional male activity. Except for acting as a substitute for such earlier physical activities, increase in warfare may relate to increase of and concern about wealth and personal property (Nolan & Lenski, 2015, pp. 129, 153). Societies of horticultural type can support and control larger populations of people. They also could often supplant other societies, a process which Lenski calls intersocietal selection (Nolan & Lenski, 2015, pp. 149-152). In prehistory and also in the historical era, this could often be at the expense of hunting and gathering societies (cf. Bellwood, 2013;ibid.).
Agrarian societies that develop from about 3,000 BCE on are characterised by their invention and use of the plow as a technological instrument. They are ultimately comparable with horticultural societies except that the plow enables a better use of the agricultural possibilities. 29 This itself then leads to societies that are larger, more stratified and specialised, and generally also more powerful than horticultural societies. As they develop, such societies (and similarly horticultural societies) also move away from kinship systems as societal complexity increases and kinship does not provide a sufficient pool for filling offices. 30 The invention and spread of the use of iron towards the end of the second millennium BCE and the technological power this unleashes marks the transition of simple agrarian societies to advanced ones for Lenski, and also spearheads a range of further technological innovations over the ensuing centuries (Nolan & Lenski, 2015, pp. 169-172). The development and use of writing is also characteristic of these societies. It would seem that the classification of agrarian society is apt for societies between hunter gathering societies and industrial societies, and that in many ways horticultural societies and agrarian societies share similar features.
As for industrial societies, their analysis is out of scope for the present discussion as they only develop from the 18th century on. That also means that we as observers who at least mostly are members of industrial societies should focus on looking at the earlier societal types when dealing with the study of ancient Israel. In this, we can situate ancient Israel in the continuum of agricultural societies, at the threshold of moving from simple to advanced agricultural technology. Therefore, insights gained from the study of agricultural societies should be particularly pertinent. Interestingly, if we can follow Lenski's analysis at least in its main outlines, this suggests that ancient Israel may have features that are similar to even European agrarian societies up till the 18th century and even beyond, and on the other hand other agrarian societies that existed before ancient Israel. At the same time, when looking at early Israel, its kinship systems with its ideas of blood revenge, and at least potentially the idea of fictive kinship bear strong resemblances to hunting and gathering societies. While these features are not really attested in the more advanced agrarian societies with their more extensive and impersonal bureaucracies, this would not seem to preclude a comparison of these societies within the agrarian type. Perhaps the idea of kinship can be at least to some extent replaced by citizenship in advanced and modern industrial societies, but, for example, such issues as common history and customs as creating group identity would seem to exist in both simple and advanced types of agrarian society.
A further issue, and this is where Lenski's contribution to the study of ancient Israel can be highlighted, is the concept of frontier societies. They are societies where the common population of agrarian societies (one could also envisage this as applying to horticultural societies) succeeds in escaping the cusps of the agrarian elite and establish a more egalitarian order in a frontier zone that the elites are not able to control, at least not sufficiently (Nolan & Lenski, 2015, pp. 169-172). In such a zone, that may previously have been uninhabited, or may have been inhabited by smaller societies that were less advanced, traditional patterns of life would often break down, resulting in the possibility of establishing the new form (Nolan & Lenski, 2015, p. 198). Lenski offers early Israel as the first known instance of such a society, and more recently the Norwegian-Irish settlement of Iceland, the settlement of North America by Europeans, the British settlement of Australia and New Zealand, the Boer settlement of South Africa and the Cossack settlement of the Russian steppes (Nolan & Lenski, 2015, pp. 198-199). Interestingly, all of these examples can be seen in the context of agrarian societies. In addition, except for the Norwegian-Irish settlement which appears to have been on an uninhabited land, the other examples can be analysed as settler colonialism, a topic discussed in further detail below, with a flurry of studies on the settler colonial situations of North America, Australia and New Zealand and South Africa in the last 20 years or so (cf. below). Lenski's comments that frontier conditions only last a limited time after which traditional authoritative structures tend to establish themselves also applies to early Israel in that the monarchy took hold at the time of David and Solomon, some 200-300 years after the start of the Israelite settlement (Lenski, 2005, pp. 157-158;Nolan & Lenski, 2015, p. 199;cf. Lenski, 2005, p. 160). Interestingly, Lenski's suggestion that the closing of the frontier in America led to the reversal in the direction of traditional structures asserting themselves 31 fits with the idea of the frontier closing in the time of David and Solomon. 32 Such a state of affairs could be a result of shrinking of the available resource base from the perspective of the frontier society as there was no more room for the society to expand, with eventual reestablishment of traditional authority structures. 33 An important related suggestion by Lenski is that had the new society been based on the governing class of the older society, the sociocultural patterns of the older society would be likely to have prevailed (Lenski, 2005, p. 158). Such preservation however does not seem to have been the case in the Palestinian highlands, instead, archaeological evidence suggests at least relative lack of social stratification. Also, and in more direct response to Gottwald's peasant revolt theory, Lenski suggests that elites do not give their power away voluntarily and that peasant revolts have been rarely successful in history, nor that there is any evidence of peasant revolts in the late second millennium BCE, but, instead, such a revolt would have to be assumed (Lenski, 2005, pp. 153-154, 159-160). And, peasant revolts have not been able to establish a new order, mostly just a change in those who hold power (Lenski, 2005, p. 199;Nolan & Lenski, 2015, pp. 183-184). The well-known exception of France in the 18th century would seem to have taken place at the onset of the industrial revolution, and even it was soon reversed by the rule of Napoleon until later developments in democracy in the 19th century that already falls well within the industrial era. At the same time, interestingly, the point that elites do not voluntarily cede their power also speaks against an indigenous development in the highlands. As attested by the Amarna letters, the indigenous polities largely consisted of fairly small city states, a picture confirmed also by the book of Joshua. Such city states would have had a monarchical based administration, and it seems quite unlikely that such an overall administrative and societal structure would have subsided even if those independent city states did unite into an overarching society in the highlands. Accordingly, a development that relates to frontiers and an establishment of a completely (or at least relatively) new society clearly seems more plausible.
If ancient Israel then was a frontier society, the question of where the members of that society came from seems pertinent. One may here add that the problems just expressed in relation to a peasants revolt model really also pertain to any model of origins that relies on a primarily indigenous transformation. Lenski himself suggests a source of people from the lowlands (Lenski, 2005, p. 156). As already indicated above, for Lenski, such people would have been members of the lower classes (see Lenski, 2005, pp. 156-157). While this of course seems to be in contradiction with the potential textual evidence from the Bible that suggests migration from Egypt, the suggestion nevertheless is that the highland society does come from outside the highlands, at least essentially so, and I will make further comments on this later on in the paper. But, for now, Lenski himself also suggests that an elite component did come from Egypt and was able to establish its story as the exclusive foundation story of early Israel. 34 In this, the Levites can be seen as refugees from Egypt, with Lenski noting the likelihood of them having had a substantial education in the Egyptian society (ibid.). Such a suggestion itself fits with the notion from ethnic studies that the elites, which consist of priests/monks and scribes in pre-modern societies, tend to be so-called mythomoteurs (or promoters of myths) in societies. 35 And, we may mention in passing that it fits with the concept of founder rank enhancement in migration studies (cf. Bellwood, 2013, p. 14). In terms of the biblical documents, whatever their postulated dating, priests (a branch of Levites) and Levites are certainly seen as the principal authors of the legal materials, a substantial block of materials in Genesis-Joshua (P/H, D) that purport to depict early Israel. If one then suggests that the priestly-Levite elite was responsible for producing Genesis-Joshua based on such legal materials and other tradition available to them, this would easily explain how Genesis-Joshua could become a foundational document for ancient Israel, regardless of the time of composition. However, in fact, at least as such, one could even at least entertain the idea that such elite produced the document at the time of the settlement, and I have elaborated on such an idea in my previous work (see Pitkänen, 2015). If so, one can think that the document was then transmitted in the Israelite society (by this cultic personnel) through the ensuing centuries and through the Babylonian exile and beyond, ultimately finding its way in an essentially unbroken chain till the present day, quite naturally with a variety of reinterpretations in the new contexts it was being read (cf. Pitkänen, 2015;cf. Lenski, 2005, pp. 162-163; cf. also below).
That kinship is important in ancient Israel seems to be a vestige of hunting and gathering societies. However, we can see that early Israel is not depicted as an agricultural society that is based on a large-scale administrative bureaucracy that some contemporary agrarian societies, such as ancient Egypt would have had (see Nolan & Lenski, 2015, pp. 161-163). Accordingly, a kinship based political system seems very reasonable for ancient Israel, also in light of customs known elsewhere in the ancient Near Eastern area (Schloen, 1991). And yet, ancient Israel did have its administrative structures. Interestingly, the Pentateuchal sources themselves envisage a tax on Israelite produce that is used for the upkeep of the priestly and Levitical elite. This said, the rate of the tax is fairly low, largely consisting of the firstborn of the animal and a tenth of the produce of the land. To this may also be added a variety of sacrifices as described in Leviticus and Numbers. At the same time, as the priestly and Levitical population is envisaged as a proportion that is slightly less than 10% (one of twelve tribes), this makes the rate of taxation quite low in comparative terms and is in line with the egalitarian ideology of early Israel (cf. also e.g. Berman, 2008). One may also keep in mind that the priests and Levites are envisaged as owning only a minimal amount of land, mostly concentrated around towns, 48 in number throughout the land according to the biblical documents (Num 35; Josh 21). The urbanisation of priests and their reliance on surplus from the common people is attested in comparable societies, including the horticultural societies of South America that were in practice completely isolated from the Old World until the time of Columbus (cf. Nolan & Lenski, 2015, pp. 148-149). Reasons for an apparent, at least relative failure of the envisaged system that are different from the commonly held idea that its expression only originated at a later time will be given below.
Why, then, would the new society be able to establish itself? Certainly, if one takes into account Lenski's approach, the role of violence should not be excluded. Comparative studies of agrarian and related frontier societies clearly indicate that they may involve the exercise of violence and warfare (see Lenski, 2005, p. 10 and passim;Nolan & Lenski, 2015, passim). Accordingly, the establishment and spread of the highland society does not have to be considered to have been a peaceful transformation. Lenski's concept of intersocietal selection would apply here also, with the new Israelite society destroying the older societies, and with overtones with the concept of natural selection in evolutionary theory. As for the mechanics of that selection, we will look at those in more detail when looking at settler colonialism, however, Lenski's approach helps us ask what the advantages that enabled the new Israelite society to thrive and replace earlier societies would have been. Lenski himself suggests a number of technological advantages, such as the use of iron, rock terracing, use of cisterns, etc. (see Lenski, 2005, p. 155). Such issues as the use of the four-room house could also have been important (cf. Pitkänen, 2014b, p. 244). These arguments may however be dampened by comments that all of those technologies, save perhaps iron itself, or at least its widespread use, were already known in the area in earlier times. And yet, it would seem that one can reasonably postulate that it is the combination and perhaps at least to some extent local innovation of these technologies that helped enable the new society to gain an advantage, and this in fact clearly seems to be in line with studies of ethnicity. 36 I would also suggest that a sense of unity could have enabled the new society to prevail over a fragmented group of existing societies, this certainly finds a parallel with, as even the name goes, the United States prevailing over hundreds of indigenous nations at a more recent time. With Israel, the concept of common descent can be considered as a fundamental component, together with the idea of a common history, including liberation from Egyptian slavery and a sojourn of the tribes in the wilderness. This common descent and history could be at least partially mythical, but if its propagation would be successful at least to some extent, it could provide a powerful bond amongst the settling peoples (Pitkänen, in press). A common concept of being the people of Yahweh would also be instrumental, however tenuous and mixed with other ideologies such a concept might have been in practice. 37 That there was a demographic slump in the highlands in the Late Bronze Age can also be considered as an advantage for the emerging society, and this can be compared with the New World where the native populations were weakened by European diseases, in addition to being less advanced technologically in comparison to the Europeans (including in their lack of use of Iron) and accordingly having smaller population densities than those of the encroaching European societies. A population explosion, as it has been called, that took place in the Early Iron Age highlands (see Dever, 2003, p. 98), and which for example can be compared to the population explosion in the colonial United States, 38 can also account for the (territorial) expansion of the new Israelite society, and this is in line with overall ecological-evolutionary theory. 39

Migration and settler colonialism
I have already extensively covered settler colonialism as it relates to ancient Israel in my previous publications. I will therefore only make some quick summary comments about related theoretical issues here, and as they relate to the other theories that are in view.
From a theoretical perspective, settler colonialism should be seen as separate from "ordinary" colonialism, even though the two often overlap and help define each other (see Veracini, 2010, pp. 1-15). Many of the developments in the study of settler colonialism are very recent, with the field still in a number of ways at an incipient, even though already fruitful stage. 40 As Wolfe describes it, settler colonialism is a specific complex social formation (see Wolfe, 2006, pp. 390, 401). One important defining characteristic in settler colonialism is the concept of a settler. Settlers come to stay, whereas colonial sojourners, such as administrators, military personnel, entrepreneurs and adventurers return (Veracini, 2010, p. 6). There is also a crucial distinction between settlers and migrants. Settlers are founders of political orders and carry their sovereignty with them, while migrants are suppliants who face a political order that is already constituted. 41 In addition, as Veracini describes it, "while settlers see themselves as founders of political orders, they also interpret their collective efforts in terms of an inherent sovereign claim that travels with them and is ultimately, if not immeditely, autonomous from the colonising metropole" (Veracini, 2010, p. 53). A further characteristic of settler colonialism is that whereas colonialism is a master-servant relationship where the colonised people are often used for exploitative purposes, in a settler colonial situation, the indigenous person is characterised by their dispensability (Veracini, 2010, p. 8). In other words, indigenous peoples can, and in fact are actively made to "vanish", and this is effected by a varying set of actions called transfer. 42 These range from liquidation and deportation to various ways where indigenous peoples are in effect assimilated to the settler collective, whether culturally, administratively or conceptually. 43 Settler colonialism is a structure rather than an event where an initial invasion gives rise to a prolonged process of eliminating the indigenous population (Wolfe, 1999(Wolfe, , pp. 2, 163, 2006. The dynamics of the settler colonial situation are further defined by a tripartite division between the settler collective and indigenous and exogenous others. The exogenous others are made of immigrants and representatives of metropolis (Veracini, 2010, 123n13). While indigenous others are a threat to the existence and legitimacy of the settler collective, there can be a selective inclusion of exogenous others as there is the possibility of collaboration (Veracini, 2010, p. 26). However, there can also be undesirable exogenous others who may be subject to deportation or segregation (Veracini, 2010, p. 27). The African slaves in the Americas (segregation), and the French Acadians in colonies taken over by the British (deportation) would belong to this category. and abject others who are permanently excluded from the settler collective and have lost their indigenous or exogenous status. 44 A "successful" settler society, then, "is managing the orderly and progressive emptying of the indigenous and exogenous others segments of the population economy and has permanently separated from the abject others" (Veracini, 2010, p. 28). In many ways, the whole process involves replacing an old society or societies with a new one(s), in other words, a settler colonial society can also be called a supplanting society (see Day, 2008). The study of settler colonialism can also help understand some innersocietal assimilation and eliminatory processes, such as the Nazi genocide and the elimination of witches in medieval Europe. 45 It should be clear from the foregoing that settler colonialism ties with Lenski's concept of intersocietal selection. The additional details are about the specifics of how such processes operate. In addition, and as already suggested above, prime examples of societies that have been analysed as being of a settler colonial type include North America, Australia and New Zealand, and South Africa. Lenski himself analyses these as frontier societies. Again, I would simply see settler colonial approaches as being complementary with those suggested by Lenski. In addition, they reinforce the idea that the Israelite society was also a settler colonial society. Related additional strong confirmation comes from textual sources in particular.
The biblical documents themselves indicate that the ancient Israelites originate from outside the land. 46 The biblical story indicates that Abraham, Israel's forefather, migrated into the land of Canaan from Mesopotamia, but that his descendants subsequently migrated to Egypt to protect themselves from a famine. The Israelites ended up as slaves in Egypt, but were liberated and left Egypt under the leadership of Moses. They then traversed a wilderness and arrived at the edge of the land of Canaan where Moses died, and it was left to his successor Joshua to lead the Israelites into the land of Canaan in order to conquer it and settle it. As part of settlement process, other peoples than those coming from Egypt could also have joined the Israelites, 47 whether indigenous or from outside the land, and these people would then have been transferred into the settler collective, whether initially as indigenous or exogenous others. Such people include Caleb the Kenizzite (Joshua 14:6), Rahab (Joshua 2; 6), the Gibeonites (Joshua 9) and individuals in 1 Chr 20:4-8; 1 Sam 27:8. 48 Interestingly, in all of these cases the transfer is based on collaboration between the indigenous or exogenous other(s) and the Israelite polity, and it is not entirely clear whether and to what extent the individuals in question were considered as full-fledged members of the Israelite polity (e.g. Gibeonites as essentially enslaved temple servants; Josh 9:22-27). 49 At the same time, the biblical documents indicate more forceful ways of transfer. Transfer by killing 50 is indicated in e.g. Deuteronomy 7, and transfer by physical displacement e.g. in Exodus 23:20-30). 51 Depicting the indigenous peoples as decadent (e.g. Deut 7) can also be categorised as a narrative transfer, 52 and recourse to a previous sojourn in the land by the ancestors of Israel as another type of narrative transfer. 53 And, interestingly, some of the seven nations in the formulaic list (e.g. Dt 7, Joshua 9:1-2, etc.) may have foreign origins (Pitkänen, 2010, 210-211 for a summary), if so, a transfer by denying their indigeneity may be involved. 54 The Israelites also legislate for a foreigner (ger) in a number of places in the Pentateuchal legal materials (see e.g. Lev 17-25; Dt 14:1-21), and the concept of ger can easily be understood in terms of regulating exogenous others. Interestingly, a special law in Deuteronomy 23:1-7 specifies that an Edomite and Egyptian can be uplifted into the Israelite community in the third generation, but an Ammonite or Moabite should for ever be an abject other according to that law. 55 Other abject others can include those who have been subject to the karat commandment (e.g. Lev 18:29). 56 In other words, the biblical documents indicate the existence of the tripartite division of the settler collective and indigenous and exogenous others and a number of possible transfers as happening in early Israel. And, interestingly, a more "traditional" colonial type of approach to indigenous peoples seems to be indicated as having been taken by king Solomon later on in 1 Kings 9:20-21, even though one could possibly consider this as a kind of transfer also, except into a "slave" class. 57 Even a golden peaceful time is depicted in the biblical documents in the time of the early settlement (Josh 21:43-45) (cf. Veracini, 2010, pp. 88-89).
In addition, the biblical documents legitimate the presence of the Israelites in the land. Abraham's travels in the land of Canaan and building of altars (e.g. Gen 12) serves powerful legitimation. The ceremony prescribed by Deuteronomy 27:9-26 which is described as having taken place in Joshua 8:30-35 belongs to the same category. Abraham's travels in the land also help establish his claim to it (Gen 13:17). The Pentateuchal documents in general clearly specify that the land has been given to Abraham and his descendants (e.g. Gen 15), and this theme runs through the whole of Genesis-Joshua one way or another (see e.g. Exodus 3:16-17; 4:5; Deuteronomy 1:8; 6:10; 9:5; 29:13; 30:20; cf. e.g. Numbers 13:2; Joshua 1:2, 12). The exodus and liberation provide a further powerful foundation story, and the lawgiving at Sinai (Exodus) and in the wilderness (Leviticus-Numbers) and at the edge of the promised land (Deuteronomy) add further strands to the set of foundation stories. The genealogies (see especially Genesis 10) serve to establish Israel's place among the nations, in the context of creation and the land Israel now occupies, and the patriarchal stories define Israel's relations with its close neighbours (e.g. the Edomites, Gen 26-27, 32-33).
The legal materials in Genesis-Joshua can be seen as providing a blueprint for the new Israelite society, even when it is not certain how much this was a theoretical rather than a practical construct. 58 We may here observe the following quote by Wolfe, also as a summary to our considerations above: "settler colonialism has, as observed, two principal aspects-not only the removal of native society, but also its concomitant replacement with settler institutions. This latter, positive aspect involves the establishment and legitimation of civil hegemony" (Wolfe, 2008, 130n71). And, "eliminatory strategies all reflect the centrality of the land, which is not merely the component of settler society but its basic precondition" (Wolfe, 2008, p. 103), and the centrality of the land surely also applies to the positive aspect(s). In sum, based on these considerations, the overall ancient Israelite strategy and message attested in Genesis-Joshua is very compatible with a settler colonial transformation in ancient Canaan at the end of second millennium BCE. 59 Again, the above comments are perfectly compatible with Lenski's ecological-evolutionary theory. And, seen together, they already provide a clear mechanism for societal transformation that for example indigenous-based theories fall far short of. However, in comparing the two approaches, while Lenski sees the documents as later reflections of the egalitarian ideologies of early Israel (Lenski, 2005, p. 165), interacting with settler colonial theory rather suggests that the documents which attest settler colonial ideology may, or even are very likely to, be programmatic and thus contemporary with the settler colonial process. This however is not any real contradiction as Lenski seems to rather rely on mainstream biblical interpretations that are not based on his own theory.
A further point also needs clarification. Settler colonial theories tend to emphasise the concept of a colonial metropolis that controls at least the initial settler colonial process. However, no such metropolis exists for ancient Israel based on extant evidence. I have already suggested that a settler colonial approach works fine without assuming the existence of such a metropolis (see Pitkänen, 2014a), but further and stronger corroboration can be obtained by examining migration theories. Migration studies are currently a lively field, including as it relates to human prehistory (see e.g. Bellwood, 2013). To start with, such studies suggest that human migration was extensive and a vital component in the spread of humankind and in the formation of the foundations of today's world (see ibid.; also e.g. Manning, 2013). Interestingly, it is only in recent times that this pervasiveness has been recognised, including due to recent advances in biological sciences, especially genetics (Bellwood, 2013, p. xv). Within this framework, according to Bellwood, one of the researchers into prehistoric migration, it should be obvious that mass coordinated migration, such as that which led to the recent European colonisations of Australia and North America, could not have occurred in prehistory. There simply would not have been such structures as necessary transport technology or the necessary extensive bureaucracy in place (Bellwood, 2013, p. 247). Bellwood also notes that, "while initial groups of prehistoric migrants were necessarily small, their demographic growth, once they reached new and encouraging circumstances was in many cases absolutely phenomenal". 60 Except for demonstrating the lack of necessity for a more modern style colonial metropolis, these comments are in line with what we know about population growth in the Israelite highlands in Iron Age I. That growth has been described by some as a "population explosion" (cf. our comments above). In addition, the concept of "founder rank enhancement" in migration studies, which is basically about those who do not have power in a society moving away to establish a new settlement, can be compared with the Israelite migration out of Egypt (Bellwood, 2013, p. 14), and this could include migration away from conditions of at least potential explicit slavery. Interestingly, in colonial North America, according to George Catlin in the 19th century, groups of native people could be "run off to a distant region, where they take up their residence and establish themselves as a nation" (quoted in Bellwood, 2013, p. 247;cf. ibid., p. 235).
While the initial migration of humans tended to be into uninhabited areas (save for cases where Homo Sapiens replaced Neanderthals), migration studies also suggest that human migration involved a substantial amount of natural selection, and this can be compared with Lenski's intersocietal selection, and also settler colonialism, even if a lack of written sources naturally excludes an analysis of aspects of settler colonialism. According to theories of migration, natural selection did not necessarily consist of complete replacement, but, for example, genetic studies show that there was admixture, and this can be compared with assimilation in settler colonial theory (see Bellwood, 2013, p. 246). There is also the concept of Demic diffusion which suggests that once populations that have migrated into a new area move out from their initial centres of residence, they increasingly mix genetically with indigenous populations (Bellwood, 2013, pp. 21-22), and this can be compared with intermixing that the books of Judges suggest. In that case, while Demic diffusion as such may preserve the original cultural traits (ibid.), these also get intermixed in the case of the Israelites according to the biblical documents, at least to a certain extent. And yet, all in all, the concept fits with the overall notions of assimilation that relate to settler colonial theory. In this respect, we do know that the ancient Israelite settlement started in the highlands and expanded from there towards the lowlands in the ensuing centuries, 61 and the biblical materials and settler colonial and migration theories would suggest that one should expect that a considerable amount of assimilation could have been involved.
A further issue that migration theories, seen together with theories of settler colonialism, can help shed light is the postulated origin of the highland settlers in the lowlands. To elucidate this, one may consider that migration theorists can classify migrations into differing types. 62 One of these is homecommunity migration where individuals move from one place to another within the home community (Harzig et al., 2009, p. 10;Manning, 2013, pp. 5-7). This type of migration is essentially not cross-cultural. Another type is whole-community migration. This consists of the displacement of all the members of a community (Manning, 2013, pp. 5-7). While humans do not have a pattern of community migration that is inherent or universal, some communities called as nomadic do migrate habitually (Manning, 2013, p. 5). Even if not strictly speaking nomadic, the ancient Israelite texts do indicate a type of community migration from Egypt to the land of Canaan, even if one does not take this description at face value. A third type of migration is cross-community migration (Manning, 2013, pp. 6-7). This happens when selected individuals and groups leave one community and move to join another community. As they go, they adjust to the receiving community but also do bring their culture and customs with them (Manning, 2013, p. 6). A fourth category is colonising migration. This is where individuals from one community depart and establish a new community that, rather than adjusting to the new community, replicates the community of origin (Harzig et al., 2009, pp. 8-11;Manning, 2013, pp. 5-7). As regards the migration to the Iron Age I highlands, it can best be classified as colonising, and thus as fitting in the above scheme of classification in terms of common migratory patterns. The migrants do form a new society that differs from existing societies in the highlands, as was already suggested earlier in this paper based on considerations of Lenski's ecological-evolutionary theory and settler colonialism. As just indicated above, the biblical documents themselves also give an impression of the category of a whole community migration, from Egypt, again a common migratory pattern. In terms of any potential historical value, this migration can most conveniently be seen in the context of return migration of Semites from Egypt in the aftermath of the expulsion of the Hyksos. While such an impression of a whole community migration does not need to be entirely correct, it does help suggest that a new entity was in the making in the latter part of the second millennium BCE, and could mask ongoing return migration from Egypt behind it. As for any migrants from the lowlands, fundamentally they could also be considered as colonising migrants. However, settler colonial theory might then further suggest that they should be considered as exogenous others as part of colonising migration. This could be the case if one postulates that the putative migrants from Egypt were able to establish dominance in the early Israelite societal consciousness and organisation, at least in some way in line with the biblical documents of Genesis-Joshua. That being the case, any migrants from the lowlands, even in relatively large numbers, could have been relegated to the status of exogenous others and seen (from a modern perspective) as cross-community migrants in addition to being colonising migrants. Certainly, according to the above classification, moving from lowlands to highlands is to be considered as migration. One might then even suggest that such migrants could be seen as part of the "mixed multitude" in the biblical documents (e.g. Ex 12:38). The term "mixed multitude" could more broadly characterise any migrant that would like to join the new early Israelite society, even from other parts of the wider Levantine area and even beyond. Perhaps the concept of ger could apply to such migrants (or even ones coming from Egypt at that stage) also, particularly at later stages of the early Israelite settlement when the early Israelite society would already have been more firmly established, such establishing including the main landholdings of settling paterfamilias. Importantly, one can further suggest that, during the initial settlement, any migrants to the highlands would also be classified according to their area of settlement. Such areas would then be named after their eponymic ancestor and further grafted through mythology and fictive kinship into the emerging twelve-tribe formation, constituting a vitally important component of early Israelite ethnogenesis. All in all, the above considerations reinforce the idea that migration was an integral component in the formation of early Israel, with the idea of a component of people coming from Egypt a reasonable hypothesis.
It however seems difficult to state at present what the relative proportion might have been between migrants from Egypt and those from the lowlands. This said, we can attempt to make some inferences. As already noted above, based on migration theories, even a small number of immigrants could increase phenomenally in a new location (see above). Accordingly, even a small group of migrants from Egypt could have increased remarkably in the course of some 200 years, from the 13th century to the 11th. If then the initial component arriving from Egypt was small, it may not have been easily detectable in the archaeological record, but only after its population increase was well under way. In that case, the entry of the initial group (or equivalent) could at least potentially be pushed to at least somewhat further back in time than is generally thought, even if I will not attempt to develop this idea further here. 63 In terms of ideology, in certain respects, it might have been easy to integrate any migrants from the lowlands as exogenous others. This is because one may consider that such migrants would probably have consisted of common people in an agrarian society that would be likely to have had large income differences between the elite and ordinary people. And, as the lowlands were under Egyptian colonial control until about 1200 BCE (cf. e.g. Kitchen, 2003, p. 98), a story of liberation from Egyptian bondage could have been an easy one for them to adopt. But, if so, an interesting contradiction, or at least paradox, is involved. It is not unusual that migrating people tend to consider the country of their origin positively, such as with the USA and the Europeans. In contrast, the biblical traditions clearly suggest that the peoples of the lowlands were counted as indigenous ones that were to be supplanted. And, according to archaeological evidence, the highland culture did spread from the highlands to the lowlands by about the end of Iron Age I, suggesting that such a supplanting from the perspective of settler colonialism and intersocietal selection did take place. Such a contrast would ultimately seem to suggest that any population component from the lowlands is unlikely to have been extensive, at the very least in the latter stages of the early Iron Age when the highland society was directly expanding to the lowlands. If so, expansion from within the original Egypt group should be seen as a, if not the, main determining factor, and, considering the possibility of even small groups increasing phenomenally at their destination, as indicated above, this is not by any means an impossibility. This said, interestingly, the biblical tradition set in the wilderness (esp. in the books of Exodus and Numbers) views in negative terms those people who feel nostalgia towards Egypt. If that tradition could in some way be seen as referring to any migrants from the lowlands also, this could be precisely so as to dampen any positive feelings towards their societies of origin, at least to some extent. The book of Judges (esp. Jdg 3:1-6) in particular of course also suggests considerable assimilation from the indigenes throughout the land. 64

Malešević's sociology of war and violence
We next consider how recent studies on the sociology of violence spearheaded by Siniša Malešević can help elucidate the issues further. The main thesis of Malešević in his Sociology of War and Violence is that the scale of warfare has increased with increasing societal development in a historical trajectory (Malešević, 2010). Two related vital concepts are centrifugal ideologisation and cumulative bureaucratisation of coercion. The former relates to the ideological power that those who control societies can exert on their respective populations and the latter to the ability of societies to administratively control their members. These forms of power are obviously exerted by societal elites, however, Malešević does indicate that the success of propaganda is not automatic but needs related solidarity by the masses in order to succeed (Malešević, 2010, pp. 211-212). A good example of this is the failure of totalitarian communist propaganda and the success of propaganda in Western democratic societies (Malešević, 2010, pp. 212-214).
An interesting aspect that results from Malešević's analysis is the identification of the pervasiveness of violence as a constitutive element of societies. Ultimately, violence or threat of violence lies at the heart of societal organisation. Malešević's analysis also shows that one's analysis of violence may be affected by prevailing intellectual fashions. Thus, importantly, the role of violence was minimised in the post-World War II climate in the West in mainstream sociological studies (Malešević, 2010, pp. 19, 45-46, 49). Its ubiquity has then only recently been recognised again and reasserted.
Malešević's studies are broadly in line with Lenski's ecological-evolutionary theory and with studies of migration and settler colonialism. All of these recognise the role of violence in human societal interactions. At the same time, while Malešević suggests that violence has increased with increasing societal sophistication, Lenski for example suggests based on a recent study of simple horticulturalists that the rate of homicide among them was 50 times that in the USA which has for many years had the highest rate of any modern industrial society (Nolan & Lenski, 2015, p. 153). In addition, recent studies of hunter gatherer societies suggest that they, too, were violent (see Allen & Jones, 2014). It would seem that violence has been with humanity all along, even if modern methods of war have made mass killing easier, and the large size of societies also tends to imply a large number of potential (and actual) casualties.
In this framework, it seems evident that the burden of proof is on those who wish to defend the concept of a peaceful transformation in relation to early Israel, a view that has often been held by academics studying the topic. Interestingly, Yahwism itself should be seen as tying with coercive societal forces. Such texts as Lev 18:24-30; Dt 7; Dt 13 indicate violence in both ingroup and intergroup contexts. Lev 18:24-30 and Dt 13 show that the threat of violence is a form of societal control, and Dt 7 is an example of demarcation between ingroup and outgroup, with members of outgroups to be eliminated. These concepts particularly tie in with settler colonialism. 65 However, they also tie in with Malešević's ideas, particularly his concept of centrifugal ideologisation. If the priests and Levites in early Israel can be seen as having formulated the related ideologies, then they are a fit with the concept of centrifugal ideologisation, and by societal elite at that. 66 The main problem for these elites would then have been the issue of effecting both centrifugal ideologisation and cumulative bureaucratisation of coercion. In a late Iron Age highland setting the land was characterised by a variety of geographical and climatic features (see Parker, 2015) that would naturally have been accompanied with a relative lack of ability to travel and communicate throughout the territory. Also, early Israel lacked a centralised administration. Under such circumstances, it would be natural to assume that the dissemination of the ideas of the elite would have been difficult throughout the territory. This would also apply if a small and relatively closely knit inmigrating community acted as a catalyst that then increased in numbers and spread out in the land, combining both increase by birth and assimilation. One should further consider the existence of competing ideologies, including those provided by the indigenous peoples of the land, many of whom might assimilate to the Israelite community. The book of Judges of course suggests that, after an initial period of relative success as described by the book of Joshua, 67 the designs of the priestly and Levitical elites of the new society were attenuated and in many ways thwarted by the social and geographical setting that they settled into. Certainly, such elites envisaged a common consciousness as a people of Yahweh, a related coercive programme as indicated above, three yearly festivals (Deuteronomy), and an attempt to create a system of Levitical towns across the land so as to help spread Yahwism throughout the territory, but this was not enough and did and could not work in practice based on the (technological) resources they had available. Perhaps the ordinary people simply were not entirely convinced of the programme, either, as suggested by the biblical materials in Genesis-Joshua themselves, also including related strong rhetoric. 68 It would appear that it was only centuries later in the context of a small postexilic society that these ideals could be resurrected and put into practice to any significant effect, even if in a somewhat modified form due to that setting being different from the setting of early Israel, for example in that the postexilic community was not autonomous but under Persian imperial rule. In early Israel, it would seem that even merely a collective consciousness of being part of a people called Israel, perhaps together with an idea of the patriarchs as ancestors and of having come from Egypt after a sojourn there, could have been the main common denominator in practice that served as a unifying force and demarcated that people from others, including the indigenous peoples. And yet, the books of Chronicles (see 1 Chr 15-28) do indicate that the priestly and Levitical elite was alive and well enough during the time of David so that it was reorganised from its set-up in early Israel according to the books of Numbers. Such a picture is corroborated by 1 Sam 21-22 that describe the massacre of the priests of Nob. An interesting point is that Nob is described as a priestly town, in the style of the books of Samuel that is not particularly interested in a direct comparison of cultic details with Pentateuchal materials. While Nob is not listed as a priestly town in Josh 21 (or in 1 Chr 6), with the location of the town ultimately unclear anyway, it may well be in the territory of Benjamin where the priestly towns are listed as being (cf. Neh 11:32; Isa 10:32 if the same place is referred to), and the implication clearly is that there was at least one priestly town in ancient Israel at the time. In this, the books of Samuel have traditionally been dated to an earlier time than the books of Chronicles in modern post-Wellhausenian academic discussion, and Chronicles themselves do clearly indicate that they date from the postexilic time in their final form (e.g. 2 Chr 36:22-23). However, Chronicles equally claim that they are based on ancient sources, and, even if they include midrashic elements (cf. e.g. Japhet, 1993), this could simply have been a style of writing that was followed in priestly circles at large. In addition, we do know that certain styles of writing can persist even for centuries, as attested by for example Assyrian annals, 69 and books in the ancient Near East could be edited as they were transmitted through time, as attested e.g. in the case of the Gilgamesh epic (cf. e.g. Carr, 2011). The books of Chronicles can accordingly be essentially seen as a mixture of fact and fiction in their portrayal of early Israel, but there is no need to discount everything of priestly character in them. 70

Conclusions
The above survey of sociological theories and of approaches to migration has revealed that these theories and approaches interweave nicely, with only minimal points of potential contention. At least in the context of the study of ancient Israel, each theory and approach helps to elucidate differing aspects of the question. Accordingly, they can be considered as building blocks in trying to understand that ancient society and reconstructing it and its history.
By and large, the above theories also fit in quite nicely with the testimony and self-presentation of the biblical materials. The main point is that social scientific models, themselves based on comparing all human societies, suggest that a societal change, at least in an agrarian setting, normally does not occur without violent means being involved. In case of ancient Israel, this then begs the question what the violent means might have been. In this, a peasants' revolt seems unlikely. At the same time, the biblical texts do indicate a process that on the other hand can also be compared with other similar processes that have taken place in world history. While such comparable settler colonial processes are particularly known to have taken place millennia later than as postulated for ancient Israel, when one takes a macrosociological approach to human societies such as by Lenski, this suggests that the societies can nevertheless be looked at together as they attest a fundamentally similar type of society and sociological setting. This of course then suggests plausibilities as to the developmental path of ancient Israel, in the context of what we know based on biblical materials and known archaeological patterns. In addition, comparison with what is known about migration gives further insight to what the role of migration could plausibly have been for the case under consideration. Finally, some issues that relate to analysing violence from a sociological perspective can further elucidate plausibilities to the developmental path of early Israel as a society in its diversity.
Overall, if one here takes into account literary and comparative ancient Near Eastern studies, one may suggest that the picture given by the biblical documents can be seen as embellished and at least partially fictional. In such a scheme, for example, it is not important whether the patriarchal narratives are completely fictional or not, but the main issue is that they were used by the early Israelites for legitimating their hold of the land. Seeing the picture as embellished would seem to help account for the narrative about the conquest of Jericho, and more widely for example enable one to consider such possibilities as the conquest narratives telescoping a longer time for the conquest and settlement than one might infer from the texts at face value (cf. Pitkänen, 2010;cf. Kitchen, 2003). Even in the case of Ai, it is possible to suggest potential ways to account for the related evidence (cf. e.g. Hawkins, 2013, pp. 105-108). The evidence yielded by the above social scientific considerations overwhelmingly suggests that ancient Israel was an agrarian settler colonial frontier society where at least a number of its founding members migrated from Egypt and where that society settled in and ultimately replaced the indigenous societies through means that included violence. The biblical documents reflect that settlement, even if the individual details of those documents should be read critically as ancient Near Eastern literary products in conversation with other evidence, including archaeological data. Also, importantly, a significant portion of the biblical documents should be seen as a testimony of the vision of an elite segment of the early Israelite society. In this, as can be seen in the so-called historical books from Judges-Samuel on, things did not quite go to plan. But, nevertheless, an Israelite society that was more or less broadly Yahwistic was established in the process. All in all, as with most historical study, things can very often be more about plausibilities rather than certainties, but, based on the above discussion, with relevant data having been interpreted in interaction with the above four significant approaches that are essentially independent but converge, the plausibilities suggested here can be considered as very good, if not excellent.
As for any implications of such a construct of the past, to my mind, it sees ancient Israel as an ancient society among others. In contrast to the polytheistic setting of the ancient Near East where gods were believed to have exerted their influence on the world from the supernatural realm, the ancient Israelites, or at least those among them who wrote the documents that have survived till the present, believed in the existence and efficacy of one god Yahweh who had acted for them in history and given them ways to live and directed them to construct an ideal society in a new land. The uniqueness of that society is its particular religio-political setting in the ancient world and its detailed ideological construction. Those reading these texts today would do well to for example acknowledge that aspects of that construction can be seen as positive and others as less so based on modern ethical analysis and evaluation, and, among other things, realise that reading such texts so as to reinforce certain religious or political agendas is not a straightforward matter. If one conducts a sociological analysis, one can see that the ancient Israelite society was a human society, nothing more and nothing less. 71 While this can be seen as both a premise and a conclusion of the argumentation, all of the considerations do speak for the appropriateness of both this premise and its accompanying conclusion, if only to proceed from trying out a premise so as to see if the associated conclusions can therefore be reasoned and reasonable and do make sense. And they at the very least arguably do so in this case.

Notes
1. On the history of Israel and Palestine, see e.g. Pappe (2004). See also e.g. Veracini (2006) on settler colonialism in modern Israel; cf. e.g. Masalha (2013). On the Israeli (more or less clandestine) nuclear programme, see Shlaim (2000), passim. 2. Such can be the case also with historical interpretation more generally; cf. e.g. Curthoys and Docker (2010), especially pp. 220-237 on the so-called history wars. 3. P itself was divided into P "proper" and H, the so-called Holiness Code, broadly consisting of Lev 17-26. 4. Today, the tern Hebrew Bible is also used, especially by Jewish readers and academics. 5. See e.g. the summary table in Otto (2012, p. 256), Zenger and Frevel (2012, pp. 67-231). 6. As already mentioned above, the books of Chronicles broadly provide a parallel account for the time from early monarchy to the exile and provide a subject for study on their own. These books themselves clearly suggest that they were written in the postexilic time in their final form, even though claiming to utilise sources that date back to an earlier time. 7. cf. Pitkänen, 2010, pp. 30-31 for this paragraph. 8. Textual artefacts from both the area of ancient Israel and the wider Near East unearthed by archaeology are of course also of importance for biblical studies. 9. For a summary, see Hawkins (2013, pp. 40-43). The main work is Gottwald (1979). 10. See Faust (2006, esp. 170-187) also Hawkins (2013) for further recent models that broadly fall within the range expressed above. 11. The united monarchy, which pertains to time at the end of the period focused on in this paper, has been debated vigorously in recent years, even if somewhat in a more muted manner in the last 5-10 years or so. This crucially includes the proposal of low chronology by Israel Finkelstein and responses to it, see initially Finkelstein (1996), Mazar (1997), Finkelstein and Silberman (2001), Mazar (2007). Except for further works by Finkelstein and Mazar themselves, see e.g. Kletter (2004), Thomas (2016). To date, most archaeologists do not accept the low chronology. Should a low chronology be adopted, this would clearly imply that the biblical portrayal of the United Monarchy under David and Solomon is a largely fictional construct, with comparable repercussions for how one should view the Iron Age I period also. cf. also on the relation of Khirbet Qeyafa, a recently found site in the area, to the debate, e.g. Gilboa (2012), Singer-Avitz (2012), Galil (2009), Garfinkel, Ganor, andHasel (2012), and Pioske (2015) from an essentially minimalist historical perspective. 12. There is of course individual variation between each scholar even within each interpretative tradition. One might go as far as to say that there are as many opinions as there are academics, which would seem an apt description of Humanities in general. 13. On archaeological theory in a broad sense, cf. e.g. Bintliff and Pearce (2011), this has also implications for the question of texts and archaeology; cf. also Bintliff (2004) Pitkänen, 2014bPitkänen, , 2015. Further, archaeological data for the period in question can be seen e.g. in Zertal (2004Zertal ( -2016, Faust (2006), Finkelstein (1988), MacDonald (2000) and Bekkum (2011), Gal (1992), Zwickel (2012), Jasmin (2006), Porter (2013), Bunimovitz andLederman (2011), Nestor (2015), Mazar (2015), Mullins (2015), Stern (1993Stern ( , supplementary volume 5 in 2008; cf. Kitchen (2003), Freedman (1992). Ultimately, there is nevertheless a relative lack of archaeological excavation on the Iron Age I period, with only ca. a dozen sites having been excavated (Raz Kletter, personal communication, June 2016). The reason for this does not seem to be clear (ibid.). Some of the relative lack of focus on new models for the emergence of ancient Israel may be due to the recent focus on debating the United Monarchy (similarly ibid.; cf. comments above). 14. In general, the Wellhausenian scheme of development from simple to complex seems to be based on an often unexpressed anthropological model (cf. e.g. the considerations of Lenski below). It can even be compared with Orientalism as expressed in Said (1978) in that the past that relates to ancient Israel, especially its early stages, is an exotic, primitive world that is gazed by the advanced Western mind. 15. It is not the intention here to elaborate on any theoretical frameworks that relate to the advancement of knowledge. The now classic work by Kuhn (1962) argued that new theories may provide a fundamental change in thinking in a field (and beyond), a paradigm change. Such a change can, according to Kuhn, among other things, involve a lengthy social process of adoption, involving even very strong opposition by those committed to older paradigms (see Kuhn, 1962; for details). Against this, there are those who are for a cumulative approach to the development of knowledge (see e.g. Fara, 2010). A mediating position can be seen e.g. in Hung (2006). I would agree with Kuhn (and Hung) that a theory can (and often does) involve conceptual changes, and these can sufficiently (what is "sufficient" is often a subjective measure, and I think this is where Kuhn can be nuanced) affect http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2016.1210717 worldviews (themselves conceptualisations of the world), and social sciences have shown time and again that cultures and worldviews can often exhibit even great resistance to change. So when the word "considerably" is used here, it should be taken as implying a (potential) change in conceptualisation that may even relate to worldviews, but whether something implies a "considerable" change (or not) should ultimately be thought of as a subjective matter. 16. cf. Below and e.g. McNutt (1999) and Herion (1986). Isserlin (1983) that focused on the potential Israelite conquest in light of three extrabiblical parallels from more recent history can also be mentioned here as falling under the category of a social scientific study. It is not the focus of this paper to discuss theories that relate to detecting Israelite ethnicity from archaeological evidence. I merely note here that that there has been considerable debate about the matter, including for Iron Age I, and that such identification is mostly difficult, even if in my view not necessarily entirely impossible. Among many works on the issue (see e.g. Faust, 2006;Isserlin, 1983;Junkkaala, 2006;Kletter, 2014;Maeir, 2013;Millard, 2004;Münger, 2013;Pitkänen, 2004). cf. also e.g. on the problem of identifying who destroyed Hazor (Ben-Tor & Rubiato, 1999;Zuckerman, 2007). 17. See e.g. the reviews in Lenski (2005, esp. 3-12, 125-140), Malešević (2010, esp. 17-85), Layton (1997), Nolan and Lenski (2015). One may keep in mind here that anthropology is very closely related to sociology and often overlaps with it. 18. cf. Above on Gottwald and Mendenhall, and see Lenski (2005, pp. 147-148). 19. cf. e.g. Osterhammel (2005). For a history of settler colonial studies (see Veracini, 2010, pp. 1-15). 20. For the concept of intersocietal selection, see Lenski (2005, pp. 116-117), cf. ibid., pp. 118, 121, Nolan andLenski (2015, pp. 152-153, 210). 21. See esp. Pitkänen (2014aPitkänen ( , 2015. Note that settler colonial studies also interact with genocide studies and that the two can be considered as closely related ("sister" fields). Their existence should be assumed as a backdrop for this paper, even if a more or less of a silent one here. 22. See e.g. Bellwood (2013). Note that it seems to be difficult to use genetics in the case of Early Israel, due to a lack of burials from the time that can be detected today (cf. Faust, 2004, pp. 174-190). The newly announced (July 2016) finds at Ashkelon that (apparently) relate to the Philistines may in due course provide information that will also have bearing on early Israel. 23. cf. above on this tendency to play down the role of migration with early Israel. 24. For postexilic Israel, see Southwood (2012). 25. It should be noted that there can be some terminological variation between the approaches outlined above. These are however not a major issue, just something to keep in mind when reading things together. I have not attempted to explicitly indicate where I have favoured a particular terminology, but I believe a reader who wishes to refer to the sources in question can deduce that quite easily. 26. See e.g. Bintliff andPearce (2011), Bintliff (2004), and cf. comments made earlier in this paper. 27. On the nature of historical interpretation in general, one may refer to e.g. Manning (2003), Curthoys and Docker (2010). 28. It would however seem exaggerated to say that these societies have no social stratification, for example, elders are known to have power in traditional societies (as would be the case with ancient Israel, even if it was not a hunter-gatherer society). 29. Even if one might ask the question of whether the plow would be the only instrument that could warrant the characterisation of a society as an agricultural one, and then question to what extent there really is a difference between horticultural and agricultural societies. I will not try and elaborate on this further here, especially as it hardly affects the argument of the paper. 30. Nolan and Lenski (2015, pp. 161-163, 184-185). One may explicitly underline here that for Lenski, development essentially relates to "a progressive expansion of the store of information available to the human societies viewed as a whole", with "no assumptions about moral progress or any other form of human betterment" (Lenski, 2005, p. 7;cf. ibid., pp. 6-8). 31. Lenski (2005, p. 158), referring to the work of Turner. 32. cf. 1 Kings 9:20-22; secondarily 2 Sam 8; 10. 33. cf. Nolan and Lenski (2015, p. 199). Note that in the USA, it seems that industrialisation halted this tendency that was already observable in the 19th century, enabling the maintenance of more egalitarian structures (see Nolan & Lenski, 2015, pp. 199-200). 34. Lenski (2005, pp. 163-165). The peasants revolt theory also allows for a small group of people to have come from Egypt (see Gottwald, 1979, pp. 35-41, 210-219). 35. See e.g. Smith (1986, pp. 42-45). Note that Smith focuses on pre-modern states with kingship, but he does also allude to premonarchical Israel as a tribal entity. 36. cf. e.g. Hawkins (2013, pp. 137-157). In general, it seems clear that there have been many cases where ethnicities have not had or developed new technological features that distinguish them from others, just a differing combination at most. cf. e.g. African or European ethnicities throughout history, and e.g. the Tutsi and Hutu at around the time of the recent related genocide. 37. cf. Fritz (2011) which suggests that there are good reasons to deduce from available evidence that the concept was operative already in the premonarchical period. 38. As Kakel describes, in some respects, the conquest of North America was achieved in bedchambers rather than on battlefields (see Kakel, 2011, p. 122). 39. See Lenski (2005, p. 117) for population growth as a factor for societal (including territorial) expansion. 40. See Veracini (2010, pp. 1-15) for a summary of past research. 41. Veracini (2010, p. 3), also with reference to the work of M. Mamdani. 42. See Veracini (2010, pp. 16-17, italics author). This relates to the concept of "logic of elimination" or "structural genocide" (rather than simply genocide) as expressed in Wolfe (2006, pp. 401, 403). Note also that while the exploitation of the labour of the indigenes is not the primary objective of the colonisers, such exploitation can take place as part of the process of elimination (see Wolfe, 1999, p. 29;cf. also Hixson, 2013, pp. 36-42) for an example, with comments on that below. 43. Veracini (2010, pp. 35-51) listing 26 different forms of transfer. 44. Veracini (2010, pp. 27-28); cf. below for a potential biblical example. 45. See Wolfe (2006, p. 403). Speaking somewhat metaphorically, we may suggest that the external and internal are ultimately two sides of the same coin. 46. Veracini suggests that peoples originating outside the land(s) they occupy tend to see their existence in historical terms, whereas indigenous peoples see themselves in ontological terms (personal communication, 2013). 47. But note also the mixed multitude ("erev rav") that went out of Egypt in the Exodus according to Ex 12:38. 48. The last two noted by Brug (2010, pp. 5-6). 49. cf. these with charts in Veracini (2010, pp. 25-29). In any case, taking these people in seems closely connected by Veracini's transfer by assimilation (Veracini, Veracini (2010, p. 35). 51. Veracini (2010, p. 35) classifies this as an ethnic transfer. 52. Veracini (2010, p. 41, Narrative transfer I). 53. This seems close to Narrative transfer IV in Veracini (2010, pp. 42-43), even though there also seem to be differences. 54. Veracini (2010, pp. 35-36) calls this a transfer by conceptual displacement. 55. cf. Veracini (2010, pp. 26-28) for the concepts in settler colonial terms. One may keep in mind here however that there is a debate as to what extent ancient Near Eastern law is to be taken as theoretical or as practical, for example, no court cases referring back to legal codes exist in the ancient Near East from around the time in question (see e.g. Westbrook, 2003, esp. 18-19). 56. While such people would most naturally originate from the settler collective, it would also seem appropriate to be categorised as an abject other after having been cut off (karat) from one's people. 57. But this seems essentially similar to the treatment of the Gibeonites as indicated above, at least in some respects. Cf. also further comments on slavery below. It is also possible that Zadok was a pre-Israelite priest in Jerusalem and assimilated into Israel and grafted into the Israelite genealogies as a priest, see e.g. Pitkänen (2003, esp. 268n706, 151n186). If so, that transfer was certainly not into a slave class!. 58. cf. Our comments above about the practical application of ancient Near Eastern materials. 59. One may keep in mind that we do know that the ancient Canaanite societies as attested in the Amarna letters in the Late Bronze Age are transformed into Israelite societies in the ensuing centuries, even if one takes a minimalist approach into the history of Israel. 60. Bellwood (2013, p. 247, italics author). In the more modern world, the USA in particular provides an interesting comparison (see Belich, 2009, pp. 49-70, 177-185; cf. also Kakel, 2011), according to which the conquest of North America was achieved in bedchambers rather than on battlefields (p. 122). 61. cf. e.g. Faust (2006), Finkelstein (1988, for the patterns of this settlement as seen in archaeology, and cf. comments in Note 13. 62. Manning (2013, pp. 5-7) and Harzig et al. (2009, pp. 10-11). Harzig and Hoerder categorise under six differing labels which ultimately can be encompassed within the four categories given below. 63. Note also how Hawkins (2013, pp. 189-206) suggests that the settlers were less sedentarised at the earliest stages of their settlement.

A further interesting related question is what effects
the arrival of any other migrants, such as the Philistines in the 12th century might have had on the area. Some of the migrants to the highlands could even have been due to a "shatter zone" that was formed due to the incoming Philistines (cf. Dt 2:23; cf. also Dt 2:10-12, 20-22). For this concept in North America, see e.g. Hixson (2013, pp. 37-40). Interestingly, Hixson suggests that "Through marriage, fictive kinship ties, adoption, shared language, alliances, and other means, dislocated indigenes coalesced into new bands" (ibid., p. 40). Cf. also Pitkänen (2014b). The use of these and other potential incoming migrants, and also indigenous peoples, as slaves should also not be excluded based on the biblical materials and extrabiblical parallels; see e.g. Ex 21:1-11; Lev 25; Dt 15:12-18; Gen 8:20-27; 1 Ki 9:20-22; cf. Hixson (2013, pp. 36-42) on slave taking in North America from the indigenous population by the colonists; cf. also Nolan and Lenski (2015, pp. 143-144) on the commonness, even if not omnipresence, of slavery in agrarian societies. Note though the potential, even if in a number of respects limited, moves towards humane treatment of slaves in ancient Israel (e.g. Ex 20:8-11; Dt 5:12-15; Lev 25; Dt 15). Slavery itself is attested in the laws of Hammurabi in the first part of the second millennium, and it has otherwise generally been argued that these laws were known to the biblical authors, cf. e.g. Wright (2009). Overall, the Mesopotamian based cuneiform culture was widespread throughout the ancient Near East in the second millennium BCE. 65. cf. above. We may also note/remind here that the issue is not confined to passages that explicitly mention the word herem [otherwise, on herem, cf. the comments in Pitkänen (2010), p. 154; cf. also e.g. Stern (1991)]. 66. Note for comparison the methods of centrifugal ideologisation enunciated in Cline and Graham (2011, p. 5 and passim). These authors employ Michael Mann's model of four overlapping sources of social power for empires: ideology, economics, military and politics, and while their exact manner of overlap is beyond the scope here, ideology and military are clearly directly related to Malesevic's concepts. 67. In general, for a comparison of the book of Joshua with the work of Malešević, see Pomeroy (2014). 68. cf. e.g. Ex 32; Dt 6; Jdg 2:6-7, and cf. comments made above on the relationship of common people and centrifugal ideologisation. 69. See Niehaus (1985). A fairly casual perusal of Assyrian annals themselves in itself already shows a similarity of style throughout centuries. 70. Note also that if reecriture was involved in addition to redaction, it would be harder to distinguish sources within the composition. 71. As one accompanying corollary of this, the question of the existence of the divine thus remains the same with the ancient Israel society as with any other human societies, that is, in the realm of belief, just as it has been with humans since the beginning of their known existence.