Time, Culture and Identity is a book which attempts to write about prehistory while at the same time meditating on what that writing involves. It is composed of two sections, one of which addresses a number of philosophical issues, while the other presents a series of case studies. This structure might easily give the impression that I first formulated a theoretical position and then proceeded to impose it onto particular sets of evidence. In practice, the book was written in a much less linear fashion, tacking back and forth between conceptual problems which were set up by the evidence and onslaughts upon the material which were suggested by the developing fabric of ideas. In a sense it represents a very personal (and perhaps rather indulgent) piece of work, since it is the outcome of my own process of working through a series of problems which appeared to me to be unresolved when I had finished my first book, Rethinking the Neolithic (Thomas 1991). Writing is thinking, and my hope is that others will find this record of my own learning process instructive.

In his book Time, Culture and Identity Thomas proposes the adoption of a Heideggerian archaeology. This is consonant with the adoption of Heidegger's thought in a number of neighbouring disciplines, including anthropology (Jackson 1989). For many Heidegger heralds the end of modernity and an attempt to overcome habits of thought that have become engrained over the last few hundred years. This is also Thomas' starting point. Thomas begins with a critique of habits of thought and particularly Cartesian dualisms such as mind::body and culture::nature. He then emphasises the nature of lived experience as a seamless whole, which breaks down these distinctions putting people within the flow of life, rather than seeing them as subjects confronted by a series of external objects. One result of the erosion of the object-subject dualism is that there are no such things as social relations: all relations between people involve relationships to things and all connections to things are structured through the networks of bonds to other people.

Thomas' paper and manuscript are ambitious. He aims at nothing less than opening up for discussion fundamental concepts which have informed archaeological writings to date. While in principal laudable and exciting, the chosen concepts – time, culture and identity – are broad, each one on its own of daunting complexity. The vastness of the project is handled by setting up an opposition at the outset between the Cartesian and modernist reading of these concepts adopted by archaeology and an anti-Cartesian and anti-modernist reading facilitated by Heidegger. At issue is less the validity of Heidegger's writings or their deployment in contemporary theory-making, a fact which the author is at pains to defend, though leaving the novice at pains guessing what his writings are actually about; at issue is whether the future of archaeology should rest on developing an anti-Cartesian theory in the first place. The mind/body dualism associated with Descartes has been the subject of much critical work, so much so that it seems at best unnecessary to have to revive Heidegger to give Cartesianism the final blow. One may further question the opposition itself; is it not Kant who is the foundation of post-Enlightenment thought, rather than Descartes, and would thus not his writings be the point of departure for any rethinking of theoretical assumptions that may have guided archaeological theory and practice? A third reservation may be voiced about the validity of the interpretative approach itself; it rests on the assumption, also known as the logocentric paradigm, which holds that a relation exists between an object or image and a narrative description of it which is ‘found’ outside the object and thus may vary according to the context in which the object is seen. The most serious criticism to this assumption is that it ignores the immediacy of understanding which allows images to play a fundamental role in social transmission. Thomas' use of Heidegger's notion of Being appears to strive towards precisely such an immediacy of understanding, yet fails to do so by leaving accounted for the materiality of images. In advocating the interpretative approach, Thomas sets out less a new direction for archaeological theory than captures post-modernist writing which dominated across disciplines for the past decade and left a whole generation of scholars trained during this period ill-equipped to deal with artefacts in more than an exemplary manner. In the late 90s, however, due to advances in cognitive psychology and our day to day experience with cyberspace, this neglect of the image, material and conceptual, and its role in transmission has become glaringly obvious and unacceptable. Critical in their inception, however, paper and manuscript are intently thought provoking, stimulating and timely in calling for a rethinking of archaeological theory to accommodate the contemporary perception of material things. In my discussion I aim to both paraphrase the main points of Thomas's paper and manuscript and to offer comments and questions.

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.

Julian Thomas' published work since 1988 has been largely concerned with the integration of theory and practice. If there is now a general recognition that ‘practice without theory is blind’ (Shanks and Tilley 1987), Thomas counterbalances this with a welcome reminder that ‘theory without practice is sterile’. In his words, this is an attempt to ‘write about prehistory while at the same time meditating on what that writing involves’.

Let me begin my commentary on Julian Thomas' provocative and stimulating project by invoking, as anthropologists seem to do from time to time, the figure of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes, as we know, classified types of persons, livelihoods, mentalities and criminalities by, among other things, the varieties of dirt on their shoes, the characteristic calluses and grooves on their hands, the imprints they made upon different utensils, the kinds of tobacco, food scraps, and bits of clothing they left behind as traces of their presence. Holmes made a living out of deducing the motivational and moral contours of a human personality from such material indices. He knew the physical components of his environment – the different soils and plants of London, which stores purveyed which implements and goods characteristically utilised by criminals – and he catalogued the sartorial and other visible indices which marked inhabitants of different districts, and socioeconomic and ethnic categories. We also learned that he was not unfamiliar with the Who's Who of London society of his time, not to mention the London constabulary and the organisation of various other professions whose activities related to his interest in crime solving.

It is a rare treat to have a distinguished group of colleagues give up their time to read and comment upon one's work. They deserve my thanks for their kindness, but also for their more trenchant criticisms. As Susanne Küchler notes, Time, culture and identity is a very personal project, and I view these commentaries as an unexpected addition to the learning process which the book represents. They have raised questions which will stimulate my work for a good while to come, but for reasons of space I must be brief here. I will reply to each in turn, although in no particular order.