ABSTRACT
The Hittites loom over all other peoples in the early history of Anatolia in their broad exercise of political power and lasting cultural impact. By the time of the Hittite Old Kingdom, the Hurrians formed a sizable percentage of the population of northern Mesopotamia and southern Anatolia as well, but it was during the growth and expansion of the Empire that they had their greatest impact in the north. Historical sources for the later rulers of the Old Kingdom are meager and incoherent, but it would appear that the kingdom held its own on the Anatolian plateau while retreating from Syria. The historical documentation for the Hittites thus spans the break between the floating relative chronology of the Middle Bronze Age and more or less absolute chronology tied to the modern calendar of the Late Bronze Age, but does little to resolve its length. The archaeology of the Hittites in the Late Bronze Age is an archaeology of imperialism.
