Gavin Lucas questions whether Ian Hodder's analysis of the ‘entanglements’ between humans and many other things necessarily assumes an inherent asymmetry. The quick answer is that it is more than likely, and we might wonder why Lucas thinks that this is a problem. The recent ‘ontological turn’ in archaeology has sought to treat the differences between all things ‘symmetrically’ and ‘without a priori subsuming them into an asymmetrical regime of radical divides’ (Olsen and Witmore 2015, 188). One such radical divide would be between living things (such as humans) and non-living things (such as hammers): it is the potential asymmetry across this divide that Lucas seems to want to avoid.

Under the title Triumphal procession from the blind alley, the German magazine Der Spiegel in the autumn of 1995 published a series of articles on the latest developments in the archaeology of Homo sapiens and its ancestors. These articles focus on mankind's evolution, and its relationship to the capacities of mankind's mind and culture. The question is posed: Did the prevailing circumstances force mankind to develop its mental abilities, or did evolution plant the seeds of culture in the brain of Homo sapiens? As soon as we hear a question like this, we have the suspicion that its rests on a shaky metaphysical foundation: the distinction between natural evolution on the one hand, and mind, culture, art, myth, religion, and language on the other.

Mark Pluciennik's paper offers an insightful review of those seventeenth-century philosophical issues that influence archaeological theory, even today. I am in broad agreement on the significance of the seventeenth century, though I prefer to see that century as a prelude to the eighteenth. To my mind, it is only in the eighteenth century that hunter-gatherers become ‘invented’ in a form that is fully recognisable in modern archaeological terms (Barnard 2002a). In this commentary I shall concentrate on that issue with reference to Pluciennik's ‘six inter-related factors’, commenting but briefly where appropriate on his attempt to ‘write across’ boundaries through his example of the interpretation of the mesolithic-neolithic transition.

Presumably it is because I work at Çatalhöyük, a site referred to in just about every publication on ritual in the prehistoric Near East, that I have been asked to respond to Verhoeven's stimulating and thoughtful paper. It is certainly welcome to see an approach to ritual practice in the prehistoric Near East from a comparative and anthropological perspective rather than one in thrall to the search for origins of much later religious practices - as the discoverer of Çatalhöyük, James Mellaart (1965a, 77) puts it, ‘a cult of the Mother Goddess, the basis of our civilization’. At Çatalhöyük the debate has been dominated by the discourse of the goddess to the extent that other interpretations have been excluded, often subconsciously, so strong is this metanarrative (Meskell 1995). For instance, recent virtual reality reconstructions still depict the buildings as austere, atmospheric shrines rather than busy, smoky, dirty places of domestic work and (often rather restricted) movement. In a paper cited by Verhoeven I suggested that in order to counter this we should concentrate less on the iconography of the Çatalhöyük images and more on the mode of their experience and consumption (Last 1998). It is the need for an explicitly contextual consideration of meaning that forms my main criticism of the present paper. While a lot of detail is presented about the deposits found in the Burnt Village, the citing of various parallels from sites not necessarily greatly connected in time and space ultimately leaves a sense of vagueness, particularly in attempting to assimilate the fascinating clay ‘monsters’ to a widespread Near Eastern ritual interest in horns. In this contribution I wish to discuss the problems of interpreting the unique, offer some thoughts on how to get at the meaning and significance of these objects, and conclude by mentioning a recently discovered deposit from Çatalhöyük which raises similar issues.

The rise of the nation state has had a major influence on the development of archaeology. Nation states today, however, differ from their 19th- and 20th-century equivalents, and they both impact upon and use archaeology in different ways. By looking outwards from an individual country within a collective nation state, I will explore the forms that this can take. From a Scotland-based perspective, I will look at how various borders and boundaries, and the aims and objectives of those responsible for them, affect archaeological work. As well as looking at institutional and administrative boundaries and their effect on archaeology, I will also explore how archaeological work, and the stories we produce, can either question or reinforce the nation state. Ultimately, archaeology can be used in a very different way now than in the 19th and 20th centuries: it is less about the specific stories and more about the process of uncovering them. Rather than telling a national story, archaeology can be used as an instrument to deliver on wider objectives.

In the first third of his paper, Joris Aarts offers an elegant and stimulating review of the ideas that have underpinned our interpretation of coinage and exchange in the Roman world for the past 30 years. In the central section, he outlines a possible alternative approach to analysing Roman coinage, drawing on research in economic anthropology and on the role of money in the Greek world. The final part of the paper discusses ways in which this cultural-economic perspective might be applied, primarily using evidence from northern Gaul.

While other fields of the humanities have often brought forth intellectuals taking part in public discourse, influencing politics and society, archaeologists have been wary of sticking their necks out after the Second World War. However, the tradition of leaving it to others to connect prehistoric narratives to current politics or new scientific results is damaging both to the public understanding of our past and to our own discipline. In this article I argue that preconceptions of human past are guiding much decision making both locally and globally, and that it is therefore our responsibility to take an active part and to problematize this. Failing to do so only means that other people will cherry-pick our research for their own ends. More specifically, it will also lead to a drying up of funding in these difficult economic times, as archaeology takes a back seat to anthropology and sociology. I draw on personal experience to offer suggestions on how one could go about becoming part of the public debate and, in the long run, perhaps carve out a position as a public intellectual.

This paper discusses state influences on archaeology in eastern Europe (as geographically defined by the United Nations Statistics Division). In this respect, the following issues are considered: the current situation of a nation state, the links between archaeology and nation states in eastern Europe and the factors influencing the future potential increase of nationalism in the discipline.

In the last two or three decades, material culture as a topic of scientific study has experienced a real boom. Focusing on everyday objects, their contexts and meanings, material culture studies offers important approaches for several disciplines within the humanities. The aim of this new wave of research is to improve the understanding of social practices in a wider sense and thereby contribute to the understanding of societies themselves. Given this ambitious goal, and the wide range of disciplines engaged in studying material culture, the new approach will only have a future if interdisciplinary debates are initiated and succeed in making reciprocal benefits. In particular, the complementarities of different disciplinary methodologies should result in useful synergies. If material culture studies is seen only as a domain within anthropology (or any other discipline) then we risk it coming to a dead end (Bertrand and Jewsiewicki 1999, 181; Hahn 2005, 12). This is the larger context in which I see the relevance of the present essay and, before going into details, I would like to express my support to the ideas expressed by Garrow and Shove.

This characteristically thoughtful essay by Frans Theuws illustrates how far our analysis of central places in the early Middle Ages has advanced. Like his study of Maastricht (2001), it reveals a close reading of the archaeological and historical sources. Indeed, as Michael McCormick's encyclopaedic volume (2001) on the origins of the medieval economy shows with stunning authority, as archaeologists we have taken huge strides since Philip Grierson quipped, ‘It has been said that the spade cannot lie, but it owes this merit in part to the fact that it cannot speak’ (1959, 129). Hence it comes as no surprise that Theuws is exploring the ‘relationship between forms of exchange and the imaginary world from which “value” is derived’ (p. 121).

In this paper, we argue that closer engagement with the field of new institutional economics (NIE) has the potential to provide researchers with a new theoretical toolbox that can be used to study economic and social practices that are not readily traceable in material culture. NIE assumes that individual actions are based on bounded rationality and that the existence of rules (institutions) and their enforcement – the institutional framework – influences agents’ actions by providing different incentives and probabilities for different choices. Within this theoretical framework, we identify a number of concepts, such as collective identity and mobile jurisdictions, that seem to fit what we know of Viking age economic systems. In applying these models to the available archaeological and textual data, we outline the ways in which further research could provide a new understanding of economic interaction within a rapidly evolving context of diaspora and change.

Frank De Mita, Sophia Voutsaki and Todd Whitelaw, obviously, took the article for what it was meant to be: not a final assessment of the use of the concept of value in archaeology, nor a definitive analysis of the Mycenaean pottery at Ugarit, but an attempt to explore these issues as a basis for further discussion. Consequently, it is difficult for me to react to their comments. I can only nod in agreement to many of the points they raise and I feel that I just ought to thank them and go back to work with their valuable insights in mind. Instead of taking such an easy way out, however, I will react to some of the general issues raised by the three critics. Before doing so, I will briefly elaborate on the reasons why I chose Ugarit as the site to conduct my analyses. I feel this is necessary, because some of the criticisms derive from the difficulties inherent to the material of this site and below I will, unfortunately, repeatedly be forced to point to the limitations.

There are several reasons for not interviewing Lewis Binford. So much has already been written on the most famous archaeologist since Childe that one may well wonder why another text or an interview should be added to the corpus. This holds especially true now that Paula Sabloff has published a series of conversations with the man himself (Sabloff 1998). On top of that, his own literary output has proportions that can easily discourage even interviewers of the most intrepid kind. With fourteen monographs, two edited volumes, 59 articles in journals, 34 chapters in edited books, and several dozen reviews, comments and other genres of academic publishing—and this is only the harvest of the previous millennium, the counter is still ticking—Binford is not only one of the most influential archaeologists of the twentieth century, but also one of the most prolific ones. Another good excuse for leaving your tape recorder home is that if his work has made such an important impact, it must by definition be already extremely well known among archaeologists. Why bothering about talking to a man if everyone already knows the content of his thought? Binford has become textbook knowledge, many of his articles have become classics and figure on undergraduate reading lists, his writings belong to the canon of twentieth-century archaeological thought. So, why bother? Finally, everyone who considers, or even just starts thinking about interviewing Lewis Binford will be warned by well-intending colleagues who tell you that the man has a notoriously volatile temper and that you are putting yourself at risk.

The subject of the round table is a sensitive one, depending on the interest one represents. Based on my own work experience in South African heritage management in both national and provincial heritage bodies, I tackle this subject from the heritage authority's point of view. I will argue that archaeological sites should be left in situ or excavated only partially. When excavation is necessary, stringent procedures are to be put in place.

In an earlier contribution to Archaeological Dialogues (4.2), Raemaekers discussed the relationships between the Swifterbant and Ertebølle cultures of respectively the mesolithic Low Countries and southern Scandinavia, calling for a more regional approach to the study of mesolithic western Europe. In this comment, recent ceramic studies from southern Sweden are used to draw attention to regional variability in the Scandinavian Mesolithic.

In their jointly authored paper ‘Relativism, objectivity and the politics of the past’ which was published in Archaeological Dialogues 4.2 (1997, 164–184), the ‘Lampeter Archaeology Workshop’ argued that there has been an increasing tendency for authors to characterise ‘post-processualists’ as proponents of relativism, understood as the inability to evaluate different versions of the past or present. This naive view of relativism as ‘anything goes’ (known philosophically as judgemental relativism) was rejected in favour of a more nuanced understanding of different forms of relativism and the criteria which archaeologists can and do use to evaluate versions of the past. They also discussed the relationships between epistemologies, ethics and politics in this context, and suggested that there are implications for the ways we might engage in archaeological debates. This paper was commented on by the philosopher Diederick Raven and the archaeologists Ulrich Veit and Ian Hodder in Archaeological Dialogues 4.2 (1997, 185–194). Below, more comments are provided by the archaeologists Philip Kohl, Reinhard Bernbeck, Susan Pollock and John Bintliff. Finally, the Lampeter Ar

Archaeology, anthropology, human geography: three disciplines born out of a nineteenth-century imperative among Europeans to apply a coherent model of understanding (Wissen-schaft) to varied forms of social life within a differentiated physical world; three disciplines stretched between the epistemology and methods of the natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften) which promised certainty, and the hermeneutic reflexivity and critical doubt of the Humanities (Geisteswissenschaften) which promised self-knowledge. Each of these disciplines is today in crisis, and for the same reason. Europe as the place of authoritative knowledge, of civilization, has been decentred upon a post-colonial globe; the white, bourgeois European male has been dethroned as the sovereign subject of a universal and progressive history. Thus, the enlightened intellectual project represented by archaeology, anthropology and human geography, whose findings were unconsciously designed to secure the essentially ideological claims of liberal Europeans, are obliged to renegotiate their most fundamental assumptions and concepts (Gregory, 1993). The linguistic turn in the social sciences and humanities which has so ruthlessly exposed the context-bound nature of their scientific claims — what Ton Lemaire refers to as a critical awareness of their inescapable cultural and historical mediation — forces a recognition that their central conceptual terms, such as ‘culture’, ‘nature’, ‘society’, and ‘landscape’, are far from being neutral scientific objects, open to disinterested examination through the objective and authoritative eye of scholarship. They are intellectual constructions which need to be understood in their emergence and evolution across quite specific histories. Ton Lemaire seeks to sketch something of the history of landscape as such a socially and historically mediated idea: as a mode of representing relations between land and human life, which has played a decisive role in the development of archaeology as a formal discipline. On the foundation of this history he develops a critique of the social and environmental characteristics and consequences of modernity, and seeks to relocate archaeological study within a reformed project of sensitive contemporary ‘dwelling’ on earth.

The subject of Gerritsen's paper and the way in which it is presented invite comment on three main aspects: firstly, his theoretical stance, secondly the methodology he uses and thirdly, his conclusions regarding the farmsteads which he seeks to understand. Since my own specialism lies well outside the area and period with which his paper deals, I shall focus my discussion on the first two aspects.

I wish to thank Barbara Bender, Aron Gurevich and Ton Lemaire for reviewing my contribution and for making critical comments on the ideas put forward in it. I should like to take this opportunity to comment briefly on the main points in their reviews.