En route to becoming one of archaeology's best-known writers on prehistoric landscapes and monuments, Richard Bradley had a brief brush with the law and almost became a Romanist! Here he reflects on his early archaeological forays as a boy, his perspectives on different field methodologies, and how his ways of writing have changed over the years.

The concerns of these five commentators are too diverse to be dealt with comprehensively in this short response, but I emphasize that this paper introduces a project which aims to ‘redress the balance’ with regard to Roman military bases as domestic spaces and whose theoretical and methodological underpinnings are wide-ranging and complex. I will briefly address a few basic points.

Can we theorize the relationship between discourses that antagonize each other? In a recent article, Arponen et al. demonstrate the tension between two different research models, and spotlight the compelling impact these methods have on archaeological interpretation. In response to their observations, this paper theorizes how we can understand the position of the researcher in relation to the events they analyse. Using Michel Foucault’s approach to the ‘discursive formation’ and Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism, in this reaction I argue that focusing on a single and most important point (the crux) is problematic, and theoretically outline how creating conceptual space for polymorphous causality can aid the analysis of a ‘dispersion of events’.

On 13 November 2017, Yannis Hamilakis, Felipe Rojas, and several other archaeologists at Brown University engaged in a conversation with Alain Schnapp about his life and career. Hamilakis and Rojas were interested in learning about how Schnapp’s early academic and political interests intersected with the history of Classics and classical archaeology in France, Europe and elsewhere in the world, and also about the origins and current aims of Schnapp’s work on the history of archaeology and antiquarianism and the cross-cultural history of ruins. Schnapp and his interlocutors began by discussing Schnapp’s formative years and the intersections between archaeology and politics in mid-20th-century France. Their conversation turns to the role of individual scholars, specifically classicists and archaeologists, in the momentous social events in Paris in 1968. The final part of the dialogue concerns Schnapp’s contributions to the history of archaeology and the possibilities of engaging in the comparison of antiquarian traditions.

Assaf Nativ has written an interesting and, I think, important paper. It raises critical issues around the ontological status of ‘the archaeological’ and indeed about the purpose and aims of archaeology as a discipline. These are clearly topics that require consideration and critical analysis. His arguments are provocative, in the best sense, in that they will lead us to reflect on some of the basic foundations of what we believe archaeology to be. Such consideration is certainly necessary to disciplinary health. That said, and after some hefty reflection of my own, I have concluded that I disagree with much of the paper's argument. In the space afforded to me I aim to set out why.

Frans Theuws's paper reinforces and extends the developing critique of the early medieval economy as structured around gifts and commodities (for the ‘orthodoxy’, see Hodges 1982 and Hedeager 1993; for the critique, see Moreland 2000a and 2000b; Samson 1991; also Godelier 1999 (1996); and Thomas 1991). In the past, our assumptions about why certain objects were deemed valuable, and why they should have circulated as prestige gifts, have been influenced by notions of inherent worth (gold, silver and so on) or by the unthinking application of the laws of supply and demand (objects from afar are in short supply and must therefore be valuable). The proposition that value derives from the ‘imaginary world’ is one of the most significant in his paper and I will return to consider its implications in some detail.

Following its successful first international face-to-face debate at the 2006 meeting of the SAA in Puerto Rico, Archaeological dialogues has again organized a conference discussion. This time we chose the Old World to invite our readership and a wider audience, congregating at the 13th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists in Zadar, Croatia. On 21 September 2007 we held a Round Table session, sponsored by Archaeological dialogues and Cambridge University Press, which asked, somewhat provocatively, ‘Does the “archaeology of Europe” exist?’ Kristian Kristiansen presented a position paper on the topic, followed by responses from Old World and New World commentators Predrag Novaković, Elisabeth Jerem and Phil Kohl. This issue now presents their thoughts on this question, together with a number of comments that arose from the very lively debate at the Round Table session.

We would like to thank all commentators for their engaging responses and their useful and constructive remarks. Their commentaries offer us a second chance to clarify some of the issues which, in the interest of brevity and due to the broad nature of our analysis, we were not able to develop in the paper. At the same time they point to some of the methodological, ethical, and political problems that this kind of analysis faces. Our article was deliberately broad ranging, both in terms of time-scale and categories of evidence. This breadth has allowed us to trace a phenomenon from its genesis to its subsequent development and persistence, despite variations, up to the present-day. It also allowed us to demonstrate that the phenomenon is encountered in both official and unofficial discourses. It is expressed in a number of media, from public rhetoric to archaeological discourse, the mass media, social practices, and political rituals involving antiquities. Furthermore, in our attempt to demonstrate the interrelationships of the phenomenon with a whole range of other parameters, we have touched upon a number of issues without further exploration. Some of these issues, which have been explored by others in length, were omitted from our analysis. This is the case for example with ‘disemia’ (Herzfeld 1987,95–122); the differentiation between the Greek self-presentation and the representation of Greek identity to (non-Greek) outsiders. This issue has been commented upon by some (Sutton, Alexandri) and, given its complexity, we would prefer not to discuss it within the limits of this commentary. We should note, however, that the phenomenon of the sacralisation of the past seems to be associated with both strategies. Given that the commentaries have largely focused on different issues, we have decided to treat them separately, making the links where appropriate.

For more than a decade, since the mid-80s, the context of archaeology has changed rapidly and profoundly all over Europe. We are still in the middle of this development and numerous recent publications show an increasing awareness of archaeologists about its causes and implications. This is what Gramsch in his paper calls the self-reflexive approach and I join him in his appeal for the development of an archaeological reflexive theory embedded in sociological theory and epistemology. Not only to help us to be better aware of the changing context of our work but also to provide us with the insights and the tools to cope with such change.

The last decade has witnessed a significant increase in the number of comprehensive syntheses on Irish prehistory, both in terms of academic textbooks and popular accounts. The present review essay finds that these syntheses are highly convergent in terms of theme, scope, and theoretical underpinnings. Although large-scale migrations are rejected as explanations for culture change, Ireland is still perceived as the receptacle for foreign ideas and overseas inventions, whereby imports are not just introduced but also perfected in Ireland. We argue that a similar attitude can be noted in the perception of the history of Irish prehistory. This convergence and absence of overt polemics are explained by referring to the small size of the Irish archaeological community. The increase in syntheses is accounted for by a number of empirical preconditions, the theoretical climate of opinion, the institutional expansion of the discipline, the public impact of a rapidly changing natural and political landscape and the notion of an Irish identity.

The archaeologist's role in public life is not limited to only understanding, reflecting and informing on the past, but also should reveal who we are at present and help society in manoeuvring into the future. We are a major part of the public intellectuals who should intervene in public debate, not only in the media but also as a part of the decision-making process. We can contribute to making a difference in many aspects of human life, intellectually, socially, culturally and politically. This paper will aim to shed light on my involvement in the Israeli–Palestinian Archaeology Working Group (IPAWG). I will focus on how a small group of archaeologists has contributed positively to one of the most complicated political conflicts in modern history. I will also address an example from Al-Jib to indicate the role of archaeologists as scientists, citizens and public figures.

Professor Dawdy's keynote speech addresses some of the main challenges of the discipline in the 21st century. Archaeology should not be self-serving, and it can even become dangerous, a possible consequence of a quest for its usefulness. A possible solution would be to focus efforts on environmental archaeology. Looking for ancient sustainable agricultural practices, for example, in order to better inform contemporary human adaptations, would be a path to follow. According to Dawdy, this useful, futurist archaeology finds a public ready for such an endeavour.

My essay is intended as an archaeological dialogue on Romanization in the sense that it tries ‘to creatively discuss what we mean when we say “Rome”, across boundaries set by disciplines or scholarly traditions, fuelled by new developments in other fields, and especially in terms of material culture’ (p. 6). Therefore it is looking ahead on purpose, with the historiography of the field (only) serving as a means to an end and not so much as a point of discussion in its own right. Resuscitating, repairing or refitting the concept of Romanization itself is not at stake: on purpose I talked about ‘reinvigorating the Romanization debate’ while not discussing the feasibility of the concept in the present situation (‘When I use the term “reinvigorating” I explicitly do not mean to indicate that we should continue the debate as if Romanization were either good or bad, or to question whether or not we should use the term at all’) (p. 6). The essay, therefore, is not so much about Romanization 2.0 per se, but rather about triggering a debate to get us going again or, to paraphrase Woolf's conclusion, to get us out of the Romanization/‘Romanization’ comfort zone. The Romanization debate indeed seems to have brought us a new canon of reference works and key concerns, as Woolf rightly remarks. I argue that we should urgently try to refresh the canon by looking critically at what has become received wisdom and by simultaneously exploring what could become new key questions for our field. Canonization should be a dynamic and ongoing process.

Harris and Sørensen's paper is a welcome attempt to address the question of ‘finding’ and interpreting emotion in the deep past. Their contribution to this emerging area of debate is particularly valuable in that it treats upon a prehistoric context, and is thus unaided by the rich contextual information provided by historical sources; and it moves the debate away from the mortuary context towards other areas of lived experience – here the processes of constructing, inhabiting, engaging with and ultimately destroying an architecturally defined space. These are more ambitious and less obvious contexts for constructing emotional pasts. Where the authors are most successful is in the identification of cultural loci where emotions are developed and are involved in the construction of experience – such as in the production and reproduction of ‘sense of community’. Less convincing, for me, were the places where they follow the (mainly British prehistoric) ‘phenomenological’ tradition. My own view is that shared and expressed emotional values are more amenable to archaeological identification and analysis than personal emotional experience, and I shall try to explain why. I think by separating the social meanings of emotion from the physical experience of emotion the authors of this article might be able to pursue more fruitful kinds of enquiry.

Before developing my comments on the Heidegger theme I would like to express my admiration for the project Julian Thomas presents in Time, culture and identity. With his point of departure in Heidegger's early reasonings, Thomas is underway on the important path of a deconstruction of the Cartesian/modern dichotomies between past-present, mind-body, nature-culture and subject-object that dominates contemporary archaeology. In short, Thomas points towards an approach, where the connection between experience-time-existence and the crucial relationship and interdependence between human being and other beings (things/artefacts), provides a powerful alternative to the traditional approaches towards these dichotomies. This alternative partly situates itself between idealism and empiricism, between subjectivism and objectivism. Thomas' project also contributes to the deconstruction of the exaggerated modern/postmodern combat that in some ways seems to have led the theoretical discourse within archaeology to a dead-end. Therefore I can only agree with the main orientation of Thomas' reasonings put forward both in his book, and in his précis of Time, culture and identity, presented in Archaeological dialogues 3.1 (Thomas 1996).