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.

Modern and ancient historians have long been willing to engage in the comparative analysis of ancient and modern slave-owning societies, yet archaeologists of both the Greek and Roman worlds have been far less willing to do the same. To the extent that they study slavery at all, they do so almost entirely within Graeco-Roman spatial and temporal confines. Taking Roman slavery as its starting point, this contribution attempts to remove some of the hurdles that archaeologists have placed in the way of a comparative analysis of slavery, and offers some suggestions for new ways forward.

In 1922 Carter Woodson lay a brief but nevertheless sweeping foundation for a history of captivity that reached into the earliest recesses of the classical world. Invoking the classical paragons of democracy, Woodson argued (1922, 15) that slavery

Is there anything coherently ‘European’ about a European archaeology – or rather, about the ‘archaeology of Europe’ – or is it simply a modern political construct with no meaning in the ancient past? This paper analyses European archaeology through a historical perspective, tracing developments in the areas of archaeological conservation (heritage), thinking (theory/interpretations) and publication and teaching. It critically examines a perceived trend in archaeology from a national towards a European framework, and concludes instead that local and regional frameworks have become stronger in all three areas. To move forward, we should use our understanding of the relationship between ideology, politics and archaeology to promote a research agenda that actively contributes to the formation of critical knowledge about the conditions for heritage and research in contemporary society. There is scope for an archaeology that addresses fundamental historical problems and long-term histories of the various geographically and culturally interlinked regions of Europe.

This is an admirable, valuable piece of thinking and conceptualizing, but cramped – in my view – by the geographical boundaries which Kristiansen has set around his subject.

Jane Webster has made an eloquent and compelling case for writing slavery – and other forms of unfree labour – back into the historiography of the Roman world. Her argument weaves together questions of the nature of evidence, the principles of comparative study and the politics of disciplinary practice. My own concern has been with the archaeology of European colonialism and the postcolony in South Africa, several oceans and more than a millennium away from the Roman world (Hall 1992; 1999; 2000). Webster bridges this divide through a direct question: ‘it would be interesting to know whether Hall himself would feel that the “fact of slavery” . . . might generate recognizably similar material statements among other slave-owning peoples in other periods, including ancient ones’ (p. 112). This is to respond to this question, and to tease out some of the provocative implications in Webster's sense of the possibilities inherent in a wider archaeological frame of enquiry.

Jane Webster, in her article ‘Less beloved. Roman archaeology, slavery and the failure to compare’, brings into the limelight the necessity for archaeologists who study slavery to engage with the use of comparative methods. A brief historiographical analysis shows that, so far, only a handful of archaeologists are interested in performing a study of comparative slavery and probably even fewer are aware of the methodological complexities of such a task. Webster's article could not have been more timely. Historians are increasingly interested in studying connections and in making comparisons between people, sectors, countries and chronological periods. The emphasis on the study of comparative slavery in the UK is, for instance, demonstrated by the recent foundation of the Institute for the Study of Slavery (ISOS) at the University of Nottingham and its teaching in several other universities (Leicester, Newcastle, Edinburgh and King's College London among them). The development of comparative methodology, though, is still in its infancy. This may be one of the reasons why researchers are discouraged from undertaking such a task. Similarly, as Webster rightly notes, scholars tend to complain that the material is scanty and inadequate for the comparative reconstruction of past civilizations. Prominent among these is Walter Scheidel, who altogether, despite his comparative studies on slavery, remains unconvinced about the usefulness of comparisons in archaeology (Scheidel 2003, 581).

In his review of recent trends in archaeology, Kristiansen argues that the changes in broad trends in cultural heritage management parallel profound changes in archaeological theory under the banner of postprocessualism. He also argues that one can conceptualize these changes through a pendulum model that swings between rationalism and romanticism, the former favouring generalized interpretations, the latter favouring local and national histories. For Kristiansen the problem lies in the emphasis on local and national frameworks for interpretation promoted by postmodernism and postprocessualism that prevents archaeologists from asking broader questions. Moreover, he claims, ‘the humanities, including archaeology, are today losing academic and political impact precisely because of this narrowing of their role’ (p. 24).

This is a characteristically trenchant and persuasive critique from Jane Webster, who has done more than most to persuade Roman archaeologists to engage with comparative and postcolonial perspectives (Webster 1997; 2001; 2003; 2005 are required readings). Yet, as she argues, despite some notable theoretical advances in the last decade or so the study of the Roman past still remains hidebound within classificatory and descriptive categories. The result of this is that we remain far better at delineating our subject than at interpreting it – especially where we enter territory that is not well served by supplementary sources (such as texts or epigraphy). However, the problems that she has identified with regard to the archaeology of slavery apply with equal force in many other areas where the material culture is ambiguous or discrepant. Thus, while I find myself in strong agreement with much of what she says, I would like to pose a series of points for further reflection.

Let me begin with an anecdote: in summer 1985 Karl Lamberg-Karlovsky and I participated in Bronze Age excavations at the site of Sarazm along the middle Zeravshan river in what was then Soviet Tajikistan. I remember one of the Russian artists on the dig complaining ruefully (and patronizingly) about her Tajik colleagues. ‘When will they [that is, her Tajik colleagues] ever become like us Russians and Americans, you know, Europeans?’ Karl, who is very proud of his mixed Czech, Slovak, and Austrian heritage, snorted disdainfully: ‘Since when have Americans and Russians ever been European?’

Each of the four discussants of my paper has offered constructive comment on specific points of detail in the piece. I am grateful for their insights, and for their consensus that the time has come to break down the disciplinary restraints that inhibit interdisciplinary cooperation in the study of slavery (and much else). In terms of my central focus on the potentials and pitfalls of a comparative archaeology of Roman slavery, however, I gained most from placing these commentaries side by side and reflecting on them as a group. That is also what I plan to do here.

To start with, I would like to emphasize that I very much agree with most points of Kristian Kristiansen's analysis of the European state of archaeology. In my view he is totally right in observing a turn from the global perspective to a national and local focus, expressed not least by narrowing language capabilities and restricted citation networks, both convincingly described in his paper. Furthermore he is right, I think, that archaeology has lost importance in the academic field due to its general avoidance of the grand questions, while at the same time the reviving myths of origin and heritage have prompted an unseen public interest in archaeology on the local level.

This paper deals with Dutch flint axe depositions associated with the Middle Neolithic Funnelbeaker Culture (Trichterbecher Kultur – TRB). Large flint axes were acquired as finished products from southern Scandinavia and were deposited in specific, waterlogged places in the landscape. The application of new empirical research techniques has revealed unexpected patterns of use and treatment of these axes. Moreover, contextual analysis shows significant differences in terms of size and wear patterns compared with axes retrieved from megalithic tombs. The evidence strongly suggests that the observed differences may have been linked to completely different use-lives between the two classes of axes. Drawing on ethnographic analogy, it will be argued that the large flint axes deposited in natural places in the landscape became animated with special powers through the act of production. Given the highly ritualized treatment that accompanied their exchange, they must have played an important role in TRB cosmology.

The title of the Round Table at the 2007 EAA meetings in Zadar triggered a déjà vu, taking me back to 1984 when archaeologists in the then Yugoslavia, at the occasion of the 12th Congress of the Association of Yugoslav Archaeological Societies in Novi Sad, organized a discussion with a very similar topic centred around two principal questions – ‘does Yugoslav archaeology exist?’ and ‘what is Yugoslav archaeology?’. One may argue that the context, political and national, differs much from the context in which the EAA's Round Table was organized, but the core dilemma remains the same – can we speak of a united or integrated discipline of archaeology in a multinational and multiethnic political framework, and what are the perspectives of such a discipline under the actual social and historical conditions in Europe?

In the title of his paper Professor Kristiansen poses a question that turns out to be affirmatively rhetorical. One could surely be forgiven for reading the title and thinking that this eminent European and europeanist prehistorian had lobbed his own grenade of doubt into a discipline which, despite occasional protestations, has long assumed Europe to be a real place, a legitimate geographical context. In truth, it is not really a surprise that Professor Kristiansen asserts that we need to be more European, not less, in our thinking, but what is a surprise (to me, anyway) is the pathway he lays down towards that conclusion. His observations about the relationship between heritage/conservation issues on the one hand, and the shift from positivism to postprocessualism in archaeological theory on the other, are certainly thought-provoking, as are the results of his survey of linguistic and citation trends in recent archaeological literature, but have they a natural home in this particular argument? If yes, is his argument in favour of a greater ‘European-ness’ of enquiry the natural outcome of invoking them?

The Celtic-speaking town of Lattara (modern Lattes) in Iron Age southern Gaul was an important centre of sustained colonial interaction with Etruscans, Massalian Greeks and Romans from the sixth century B.C. One of the important consequences of these encounters was the introduction of coinage. Through an examination of the archaeological context of coins, I investigate how the use and value of money changed at Lattara after the Roman conquest. Drawing upon several anthropological discussions of money in colonial settings, particularly Jean and John Commaroff's (2006) notion of ‘commensuration’, I suggest that the incorporation of coinage into transaction systems at Lattara was related to its expedience as a standardized form of value, which facilitated exchange between the inhabitants of the town and foreign merchants.

The retraction of the archaeological research perspective away from big questions and its fragmentation into national, local or even site-specific perspectives, as documented by Kristian Kristiansen, is by no means inexplicable. However, this closing of the archaeological mind can only be adequately understood and countered by viewing it in its wider historical context.

This essay explores everyday practices as sites of memory-making, arguing that such practices have the potential to serve as markers and makers of cultural identity. I use frameworks of social memory to interpret 19th-century butchery practices on the Eastern Pequot reservation in North Stonington, Connecticut. Colonialism meant change for Pequot peoples, including shifts in family structures and the adoption of mass produced material culture. I argue that, within these abrupt changes, social memory and memory-making practices played a central role in maintaining and congealing indigenous identity. I examine evidence of changing butchery practices on the reservation as they related to the adoption of metal tools. Archaeological investigations demonstrate that even though the Eastern Pequot increasingly used metal tools for butchery, they also continued to use chipped tools made of either stone or glass. I suggest that this pattern is significant because of the ‘mnemonic’ qualities that chipped-tool usage might have carried on reservation grounds. These mnemonic practices served as binding ties for the reservation community.

As a relatively recent human phenomenon, cities are the physical culmination of many pre-existing psychological, social and cognitive capacities. The persistent presence of deliberately empty spaces in urban areas both past and present signals the conscious creation and maintenance of those locales at various levels: household, neighbourhood and civic/centralizing. Domestic empty space, in particular the space between and among habitations, was likely to have been curated and managed at the household level. However, neighbourhood-level and urban-level empty spaces were subject to multiple demands and levels of oversight; as a result, this publicly available emptiness was flexible in its use but also potentially ‘expensive’ to govern. The presence of empty spaces in an urban setting may serve as a proxy for understanding the relationship between different levels of urban interaction, from the relative autonomy of the household that used its nearby spaces idiosyncratically, to the larger impositions of authority through urban design in the form of streets and open plazas. Specific examples of empty space are assessed for the ancient city of Sisupalgarh in eastern India, where geophysical surveys and excavations have enabled us to discuss the multiple meanings of nothingness at the household, neighbourhood and urban scales.

In this stimulating piece Kristiansen provides a trenchant critique of the provincialism of much European archaeology (though he tends to concentrate his argument on prehistory), but he does not really engage with the question of whether we need an archaeology of Europe until his closing paragraphs. Here his answer is that ‘Europe and its regions [are] a far better and less exclusive frame of reference than the dominant local and national framework’ (p. NN) – i.e. we need an archaeology of Europe not to exclude others but in order to transcend narrow provincialism. Like Kristiansen, I too would like to put off engaging with the question, and start by examining his argument.