In pre-Israelite times the Amalekites had lived mainly in the Negeb, the desert fringe of southern Canaan. But the present passage alludes to a time when there was also an Amalekite presence in the central highlands significant enough for a certain part of this region still to be named after them.1
15 Then Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite died and was buried at Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites.