Eu estava tentando configurar e usar o Spring Data pela primeira vez. Naturalmente, você deseja usar a versão mais recente (Spring Data JPA 1.4.3.RELEASE & Hibernate 4.3.0.Final). Depois de configurar de acordo com os exemplos online, o aplicativo lançou uma exceção.

 <dependency>
   <groupId>org.springframework.data</groupId>
   <artifactId>spring-data-jpa</artifactId>
   <version>1.4.3.RELEASE</version>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
   <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
   <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
   <version>Hibernate 4.3.0.Final</version>
   <exclusions>
     <exclusion>
       <artifactId>commons-collections</artifactId>
       <groupId>commons-collections</groupId>
     </exclusion>
   </exclusions>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
   <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
   <artifactId>hibernate-search</artifactId>
   <version>4.4.2.Final</version>
   <exclusions>
     <exclusion>
       <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
       <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
     </exclusion>
   </exclusions>
 </dependency>

Este foi o erro / exceção:

 Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'entityManagerFactory' defined in class path resource [test-service-persistance-application-context.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.persistence.Table.indexes()[Ljavax/persistence/Index;
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1553)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:539)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:475)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:304)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:228)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:300)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:195)
at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.getBean(AbstractApplicationContext.java:973)
at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:750)
at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:482)
at org.springframework.test.context.support.AbstractGenericContextLoader.loadContext(AbstractGenericContextLoader.java:121)
at org.springframework.test.context.support.AbstractGenericContextLoader.loadContext(AbstractGenericContextLoader.java:60)
at org.springframework.test.context.support.AbstractDelegatingSmartContextLoader.delegateLoading(AbstractDelegatingSmartContextLoader.java:100)
at org.springframework.test.context.support.AbstractDelegatingSmartContextLoader.loadContext(AbstractDelegatingSmartContextLoader.java:250)
at org.springframework.test.context.CacheAwareContextLoaderDelegate.loadContextInternal(CacheAwareContextLoaderDelegate.java:64)
at org.springframework.test.context.CacheAwareContextLoaderDelegate.loadContext(CacheAwareContextLoaderDelegate.java:91)
... 31 more

 Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.persistence.Table.indexes()[Ljavax/persistence/Index;
at org.hibernate.cfg.annotations.EntityBinder.processComplementaryTableDefinitions(EntityBinder.java:936)
at org.hibernate.cfg.AnnotationBinder.bindClass(AnnotationBinder.java:781)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration$MetadataSourceQueue.processAnnotatedClassesQueue(Configuration.java:3762)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration$MetadataSourceQueue.processMetadata(Configuration.java:3716)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.secondPassCompile(Configuration.java:1410)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1844)
at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl$4.perform(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:850)
at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl$4.perform(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:843)
at org.hibernate.boot.registry.classloading.internal.ClassLoaderServiceImpl.withTccl(ClassLoaderServiceImpl.java:399)
at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.build(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:842)
at org.hibernate.jpa.HibernatePersistenceProvider.createContainerEntityManagerFactory(HibernatePersistenceProvider.java:150)
at org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence.createContainerEntityManagerFactory(HibernatePersistence.java:67)
at org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.createNativeEntityManagerFactory(LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:318)
at org.springframework.orm.jpa.AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:318)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1612)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1549)
... 46 more

Eu simplesmente não conseguia fazer essa configuração funcionar. A única solução alternativa que encontrei foi reverter o Hibernate para a versão 4.2.8.