Includes bibliographical references (p. [241]-268) and indexes.

The rise of the concept of race -- Social evolution and race -- Human evolution and the concept of culture(s) -- Archaeology and evolution -- Archaeology and the question of national identity : Gustav Kossinna -- Archaeology and culture : V. Gordon Childe -- Archaeology and the identity of Israel -- The emergence of "ethnicity" -- Primordialism and instrumentalism in the study of ethnicity -- Cognitive perspectives on ethnicity and identity -- Ethnicity as cognition : Pierre Bourdieu -- The loss of innocence -- New archaeology and the ethnic implications of style -- Style as active communication -- The archaeology of "practice" -- The identity of archaeology and the archaeology of identity -- Biblical archaeology and la longue durée -- Archaeology and Israelite identity -- Israel in the Merneptah Stele -- "Israel" as an essentialist category of social cognition -- Israelite ethnicity and biblical archaeology -- Ethnic sentiments in the Hebrew Bible -- The Hebrew Bible and the "creation" of Israelite identity -- Ideology, doxa and the boundaries of Israelite identity -- Common sense as social power.