This paper presents a dialogue about the question of symmetry and asymmetry in human–thing relations, and the links between such asymmetries and those encountered in power relations amongst humans. The conversation discusses various issues, such as whether symmetry is possible in any kind of relation, how one defines asymmetry, whether there are different kinds of asymmetry, and how inequality between humans is related to the asymmetries in human–thing entanglements. The last issue is considered especially important in light of the various critiques that have been levelled at actor networks and other relational materialisms for their weakened political stance insofar as sources of inequality and injustice are so widely distributed that they become, in effect, apolitical.

Whereas German-speaking archaeology (GSA) has long been understood as generally uninterested in theoretical debates, the situation has taken a most interesting development since the year 2000. Archaeologists tried to escape the general decline of the small university disciplines by getting more and more involved in the overarching research questions of cultural studies and in large-scale collaborative projects. The necessity of integrating a clear theoretical and methodological approach for a successful proposal and the subsequent research changed the significance of theoretical discussions. As a consequence, theme-oriented research has developed which aims at addressing overarching themes in the cultural and social sciences. We have chosen five of the most prominent themes in German-speaking archaeology – self-reflexivity, identities, space, cultural encounter and knowledge transfer – as well as material culture, and shed light on their theoretical conceptualization and methodological implementation in recent publications. Despite the lack of dominant schools of thinking, its strong rootedness in the evaluation of empirical sources, and its close link to the discipline of history, current GSA can contribute to the overall theoretical discourse of the discipline.

I would first like to thank the editors of Archaeological dialogues for inviting me to comment on Kerstin P. Hofmann and Philipp W. Stockhammer's paper on the present situation of archaeological theory in German-speaking prehistoric archaeology (GSA). The message the authors wish to communicate to an international audience is relatively simple and straightforward. GSA, which for a long time seemed ‘generally uninterested in theoretical debates’ (p. 1), has since about the year 2000 radically changed its outlook. This change is seen reflected in a large corpus of theoretically oriented case studies (represented in a list of some four hundred titles added to the paper), that in the eyes of the authors deserves the attention of the international scientific community. This positive development is interpreted as a result both of a growing interest in overarching research questions of cultural studies and of the public funding of large-scale cooperative research projects.

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.

There's an old Ry Cooder song – written by Bobby Miller – entitled ‘If walls could talk’ (not the Celine Dion song), whose refrain is ‘Ain't you glad that things don't talk’. Archaeologists clearly wish things could talk because we, more than most, appreciate the power of things and the close relationships that exist between humans and things and their shared histories. I was struck by this one day sitting reading a book in my bedroom. I glanced up, looked around me and realized that everything in that room would be there the day after I died – everything. In fact my things would clearly outlive me, and regardless of what attachment or lack of attachment I might have to any of those things, I would not be the ultimate arbiter of their fate. That would be left to others who for a whole host of reasons might not share the same relationship with these things that I had. Most would probably be discarded while others might be kept. Those choices are just one example of the kinds of emotions and calculations that surround human–thing (HT) and human–human (HH) relations.

In a way – as the authors admit themselves – Kerstin Hofmann's and Philipp Stockhammer's paper is very German. Most of their paper reads like a long catalogue, collecting and arranging as many recent GSA contributions to anglophone debates as the authors could find. In the end their catalogue sums up to the impressive number of around four hundred references.

Kerstin Hofmann and Philipp Stockhammer's essay on theory in ‘Beyond antiquarianism’ displays a mood that lacks self-confidence, despite a more optimistic outlook on theoretical reflections in their field than an earlier paper by Ulrike Sommer (2000b). The citations, amounting to 60 per cent of the text, are just an outward sign of that mood. A more revealing element is the essay's framing. Hofmann and Stockhammer do not discuss theory in German-speaking archaeology, as their abbreviation ‘GSA’ seems to imply, but rather restrict themselves to its prehistoric subdivision: the essay is actually only about ‘GSPA’. What are the preconditions for and the consequences of this self-imposed disciplinary (and disciplining) restriction?

Having followed the scholarship related to new materialisms, the call for a symmetrical archaeology, its critiques and subsequent responses, I believe that this dialogue is one of the more interesting ones as it illustrates the problematic and reiterative nature of debate within a symmetrical/asymmetrical framework. There is some clarity achieved through the utterly collegial challenges posited in emails between Ian Hodder and Gavin Lucas; enjoyable as it is at once intimate, rigorous and immediate. This is a useful discussion of something I have come to find to be an unnecessary theoretical insistence (i.e. symmetrical archaeology).

Hofmann and Stockhammer provide an exhaustive and informative overview of German-speaking archaeology (GSA) seen through a set of theoretical lenses that, as they readily admit, may leave other equally important trends in the dark. I shall therefore provide a slightly different perspective, and highlight some interpretive trends that received less coverage in their exposition. Again, it is based on my selective reading of German archaeology, which includes only part of the bibliography of Hofmann and Stockhammer, but then some other works as well. In conclusion I shall discuss what I consider one of the major obstacles for GSA to reach theoretical maturity and a wider international impact.

In this dialogue, Hodder and Lucas skilfully manoeuvre the winding trails of archaeological theory during the last decades and critically juxtapose the discussion of symmetry and asymmetry of relations between entities with that of entanglement. Their provocative dialogue compellingly leads to the conclusion that most entanglements are in fact asymmetrical. Whereas I mostly concur with the conclusions of the dialogue, addressing the authors’ closing statements I would like to highlight the need to equally (in some ways, symmetrically) consider disentanglement as the process opposite to entanglement, along with the consequences of such disentanglement. If we are to understand better the contexts and politics of entanglements – concerns that this dialogue brings to the fore – I furthermore suggest that we more closely scrutinize the density (quantity) and joining (quality) of entanglements, as well as pay closer attention to memory, emotion and affect in entanglements.

The diversity of the comments makes it an easy and a complex task to address them. It is an easy task, since each of the commentators presented clear yet widely ranging opinions about the extent and relevance of theories in GSA, which differ astonishingly – from accusations of just presenting ‘theory-lite’ (Veit) to the very positive view that there is even more relevant theoretical discussion in GSA than mentioned by us (Kristiansen). The surprisingly diverse comments lead us to suppose that we have probably found a middle ground between the pessimistic and the more optimistic perspectives. However, commenting on the responses is also a complex task, because the only way of doing justice to them is by discussing them individually.

We would like to begin by thanking all the commentators for taking the time to read and reflect on our dialogue and offer their own reactions; it can be particularly challenging to insert oneself as a third interlocutor within a dialogue between two people, but as Rizvi remarks at the end of her commentary, the important thing is to keep the conversation going and so what started as a dialogue between two people is now a dialogue between six. As a collection, though, the commentators provide a very diverse set of views and perspectives, which means that picking up common threads is not an easy option. Instead, we will try and respond to each of the commentators in turn, addressing what we see as their key points.

This article examines a small group of artefacts of the Viking Age that may have been perceived as animated objects. These specific weapons and pieces of jewellery appear in narratives in the Old Norse sources as named, as having a will of their own, as possessing personhood. In archaeological contexts the same types of artefact are handled categorically differently than the rest of the material culture. Further, the possible links between these perspectives and the role of animated objects in early medieval Christianity of the Carolingian Empire are examined through studies of the reopening of Reihengräber and the phenomenon of furta sacra. By linking studies of the social biographies of objects with studies of animism, the article aims to identify aspects of Viking Age ontology and its similarities to Carolingian Christianity.

This paper is an addition to the recent advances in the field of rock art research and aims to accentuate the significance of rocks and boulders in the production of rock art. I argue that the rock itself must be recognized as an important element in rock art production even in cases where there are no discernible connections between the rock art images and the irregularities found in the rock surface. The paper concerns rock carvings from the Taru Thang site in Ladakh in northern India and builds on ethnography drawn from the Dardic-speaking people of the western Himalayas. I argue that the rocks must be understood as devices of communication between hunters and their supernatural allies, and that the images represent messages conveyed through the rock interface. In these acts of communication, the geological irregularities of the rock surface serve no purpose and have been avoided rather than included in the compositions.

As we pass into an age of the Anthropocene, archaeologists, as scholars of other disciplines, are driven to consider how this physical and ideological climate change affects our craft, or how archaeology can contribute with knowledge and insight of significance in a shifting world. Basing its arguments on research conducted on marine debris and drift beaches in northern Norway and Iceland, the aim of this article is to imagine what kind of alternative ways of doing and thinking archaeology the current climate is calling for. With reference to this material, which conspicuously manifests both obstacles and promises for an ‘Anthropocene archaeology’, the article will question the worth of some perspectives traditionally considered essential to our discipline, while simultaneously building on confidence in a sincerely archaeological imagination.

While agreeing to openness to other world views, the underlying premise of ‘otherness’ in ‘the other’ is questioned. It is argued that individual, intercultural and intra-cultural differences run criss-cross throughout the anthroposphere. The often convoluted language in symmetrical, Latourian and New Materialist directions in archaeology is criticized. One questions what their significant new contributions to archaeological research are. The importance of refined differentiations regarding agency and effects, and the living and the non-living, is maintained. Latour's claim of a universal dichotomization in Western thinking (both academic and common) is interrogated, and empirical proofs demanded. The concepts of ‘dichotomy’ and ‘binary thinking’ are discussed. The assumed political and ethical sequelae and implications of adherence to one or another theoretical position and research methodology are questioned. Ecological awareness can be acquired from various positions. In general, political correctness in academia is criticized.

Drawing from colonial documents and archaeological evidence, this article challenges our conceptions of the Maroon colonial social category. The article focuses on Maroon testimonies recorded by colonial officials and the archaeological record of a Maroon group that settled Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de los Morenos de Amapa, from 18th-century Spanish colonial Mexico. By reconstructing how Maroons practised and altered Spanish colonial social and geographic landscapes, this article demonstrates that Maroons were not constrained to the ‘inaccessible’ areas that colonial officials attached them to and that present-day studies of Maroons have habituated. Amapa's absent archaeological record and the complaints waged against the Maroons concerning the absence of civility in the newly established town also challenge straightforward notions of Maroons and space.

In a provocative article published recently in Archaeological dialogues (23(2)), Olivier Gosselain proposes ‘to get rid of ethnoarchaeology once and for all, and join forces with other, more serious, disciplines’. In this reaction article, I challenge Gosselain's sweeping statements about ethnoarcaheology. In particular I argue against the notion that methodological weakness is unique to ethnoarchaeology, that the questions under study ignore the complexity of the social context, and that the search for cross-cultural regularities denies the historical dimension of technical practices. In conclusion, I suggest that rather than getting rid of ethnoarchaeology, it would be more helpful to meet the ambitious goals of ethnoarchaeology by improving and strengthening the methodology.