Artefacts from military bases of the early Roman Empire potentially indicate not only the presence of women and children inside the walls, but also their movements, activities and impact on fort life. This paper explores dynamic approaches to categorizing and gendering artefacts for more holistic investigations of artefact assemblages. It uses GIS mapping techniques to analyse the distribution patterns of ‘gendered’ artefacts within three forts on the German frontier – Vetera I, Ellingen and Oberstimm. It investigates the social significance of these patterns within and between the forts to better understand women's place in this sphere.

From its inception, Archaeological dialogues has lived by the conviction that theoretical debate should be conducted not only on paper, but also at conferences and symposia. To this end, the Archaeological Dialogues Foundation has organized an annual symposium in the Netherlands on theoretical issues in archaeology since 1990 (Jongste 1994). With the international expansion of our readership and editorial board in recent years, we have been looking for new opportunities to stimulate face-to-face debate across geographical and theoretical boundaries.

As a Palaeolithic archaeologist I am often surprised by the paucity of research on issues of social relations in more recent time periods. The wealth of archaeological evidence and written texts seems so plentiful from where I stand. Thus when I look into Greek and Roman archaeology for examples of research on gendered being and for a discussion of difference in the past I am reminded that archaeological evidence is the consequence of research questions as much as their starting point. We only see that which we are able to comprehend, and archaeological finds and their interpretations become visible through the questions we ask. Issues of gender in the archaeological record are a very useful reminder of the firm grip that disciplinary traditions have on our imagination. In archaeology material determinism and scientific positivism, coupled with the straw man of subjective distortion of objective reality, continue to drive our imagination at a comfortable speed that does not threaten to overturn the theoretical cart. Furthermore, firmly held disciplinary boundaries, such as those that separate history and the study of texts and representations from the practice of archaeological fieldwork, can result in a limited conversation between the social and material traces of the past. In this sense classical archaeology can appear suddenly familiar to a prehistoric archaeologist, if the refusal of history in one context effectively parallels its absence in another. As someone both used to prehistoric contexts featuring minimal physical evidence, and interested in issues of gender as understood by contemporary feminist scholars, I wonder why this should be so.

In this paper I want to make some general comments on the state of archaeological theory today. I argue that a full answer to the question ‘does archaeological theory exist?’ must be simultaneously ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Yes, there is, demonstrably, a discourse called archaeological theory, with concrete structures such as individuals and schools of thought more or less substantively engaged with it; no, in that the claims for a distinctive way of thinking about the world in theoretical terms specific to archaeology, to which most or even the largest group of archaeologists would willingly or knowingly subscribe, are over-stated. In particular there is a lack of correspondence between theoretical backgrounds and affiliations that are overtly cited by archaeologists, on the one hand, and, on the other, the deeper underlying assumptions and traditions that structure their work and condition its acceptance. These underlying traditions stretch from field habits to underlying paradigms or discourses. I will explore this latter point with reference to the manner in which agency theory and phenomenology have been developed in archaeology. My conclusion suggests some elements of a way forward for archaeological theory; it is striking that many of these elements have been addressed in recent issues of Archaeological dialogues.

As historical archaeology has expanded from its origins in the ‘settler nations’ of the post-colonial world, an increasing number of European scholars have argued for a radical reorientation of the subfield. But if historical archaeology is to be accepted as the ‘archaeology of literate societies’, the profound interdisciplinarity of the subject must be embraced. While the presence of written documents can indeed be a luxury, providing for richer or more personalized interpretations of the past, it can also be a curse, demanding careful attention to the interplay between material and textual sources of evidence. Allison's example of ‘gendering’ the Roman military landscape provides a crucial first step towards a more socially oriented archaeology of the classical world. It also demonstrates both the opportunities and limitations faced by scholars of the literate past.

‘Has theoretical archaeology ever developed into archaeological theory?’ That was the question posed by Michael Dietler and Liv Nilsson Stutz, which the British Matthew Johnson has courageously agreed to answer. Before commenting on his answer and trying, in turn, to answer this question, I strongly recommend the non-British reader to look at the brief synthesis on British phenomenological archaeology written by Joanna Brück (2005). Coming from the innermost postprocessual circle of the Department of Archaeology of Cambridge University, Brück clarifies the issues and places them in perspective.

Matthew Johnson's essay is somewhat more conservative than I had anticipated and I am happy about that. He promotes a scientific archaeology in the sense that he promotes the kind of knowledge that can be established through verifiability. Then he takes what I see to be an increasingly frequent approach to the use of the phenomenological and hermeneutic position in archaeology. His positions are relatively gentle on these matters and are an attempt to seek out a way to utilize archaeology as a superior political tool when it is needed, as it most assuredly is, from place to place in the world. He remains attuned to the established fact that the definitions of many facts are themselves a function of political contexts. I am not sure yet that Matthew Johnson's brief essay succeeds with all the links he intends to make, but I think that a number of scholars are headed in this direction.

Allison's paper shows how the complex world of real-life social relations, dependencies and needs may be extracted from the small finds and the mundane domestic aspects of life associated with a site – even when that site is a Roman fort. In her approach Allison does not presume that society in its totality is mirrored in these finds; rather her apparently modest, but in fact potentially significant, point is that concrete aspects of how people organised their relationships, and especially the spatial aspects of these relationships, are revealed by such finds. In this emphasis Allison makes important contributions to two core areas of concern: one is the character of domestic life within Roman forts during the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D., and the other, more theoretical concern, is how we make interpretative links between objects and social roles and identities. These two areas of concern are not, however, given equal standing in her arguments. The reflection upon the interpretative project of engendering is largely nested within the discussion of how one may find evidence of women and children within the Roman fort. There appears to be little acknowledgement of how some aspects of this concern need to be discussed at a general level separate from the specific questions about gender as part of social relations within this particular type of settlement. This omission is probably due to the limited space, but it brings up important points about how we reach interpretation.

The point of departure for this debate (and the SAA forum) was the question ‘does archaeological theory exist?’ Matthew Johnson's answer is wisely mixed, but mostly negative. Archaeological theory does not exist, he tells us, because there is hardly any distinctive archaeological way of theoretical thinking ‘to which most or even the largest group of archaeologists would willingly or knowingly subscribe’ (p. 117). I shall not spend much time on Johnson's denial, which for several reasons may well be justified, just note that if we apply his rather rigorous consensual criterion to other disciplines, we would probably be searching in vain also for any sociological, economic or even philosophical theory – which Johnson still seems quite convinced do exist.

One of the most important developments in the study of the northern frontier provinces in recent years has been growing realization of the complexity of the populations living within, as well as around, imperial Roman military bases. It is clear that, even within the walls, such bases were not the exclusive preserve of soldiers, or even males. (It has been especially delicious to see the outraged reaction of some conservative practitioners of Limesforschung to the idea that there could possibly have been women living inside Roman forts.)

The classic idea of the Roman army, especially of the legions, is that of a man's world, where discipline and military drill dominate, and where there is no room for women, whatever their social status or function. This idea has been fostered by the picture painted by the antique authors, in which fighting by women is reserved to goddesses (Athena/Minerva) and exceptional personages. The normal female is described as a mother or wife, whose chief occupations were confined to the organization of the household, the up-bringing of the children, spinning and weaving (Marquardt 1975, 58). This role model fits in excellently with the social structure of 19th-century Europe, where women were also absent from military camps. This, in turn, can be traced back to the to the Prussian view of military virtues, which would be diminished by the presence of women. Many concepts of Roman military archaeology have their origin in this period. In many ways these traditions still influence our views on Roman life, as analyses of the roles of women and children in archaeological illustrations have shown (Röder 2002; Becker and Hölschen in press). German archaeological research, especially, concentrates on questions of building-structures, military units or dating, whilst social aspects of life in the camps or on the frontier are normally neglected.

I am in general agreement with Professor Johnson's main points. To his and the editor's question, ‘is there archaeological theory?’, His answer is ‘yes and no’. This ambiguous but accurate answer can be divided variously. The first category would be archaeological theory per se, which would encompass the work and thought from that of Nicholas Steno in the 17th century to that of Michael Schiffer (2002) today. It would be about the natural transformations of ‘deposits’. Next there would be theories about the transformation of natural materials into the more or less durable remains that comprise archaeological ‘data’ – the stuff of everyday lives. Again, work of Michael Schiffer (2001) and Daniel Miller (1998) comes to mind. They and a long list of contemporary archaeologists deploy theory on behalf of the understanding of the creation of things that build the human habitat. Broader use of theory comes with the deployment of frameworks from demography to demonology and ecology to ethics that are used to structure historical and anthropological questions that might be answered with archaeological remains. Each selection of a theoretical position entails one or another metaphysical commitment about what comprises ‘data’ and ‘evidence’ and what constitutes a proper explanation. In this regard Professor Johnson asks, does archaeology indiscriminately adopt and apply various philosophical positions without proper regard for their extent, implications and conditions for application? His answer is yes, certainly, and to our disadvantage. As Christopher Chippindale and I have noted on several occasions, archaeology treats philosophical traditions a bit like a Chinese menu or perhaps the contents of a supermarket: the archaeologist takes one from column A and another from column B, and a whole bunch of stuff from the dairy aisle and more from the fruits and vegetables section. Not only is this not kosher – one does not mix dairy and Derrida – but the selections are radically contradictory and sometimes even incoherent.

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.

I agree with the thrust of Matthew Johnson's paper; in particular, I concur with his conclusion that there is archaeological theory, but not a ‘distinctive way of thinking about the world in theoretical terms specific to archaeology’ (p. 117). As Johnson argues, I believe we currently have multiple theories of archaeology and all of these overlap with other disciplines. During a six-year period of administrative service at the University of Virginia in which it was necessary to venture outside the literature that I typically read and review the publications of faculty from a variety of departments as part of promotion and tenure decisions, I was initially often surprised by, and later reminded of, the degree of theoretical commonalities between archaeology and other disciplines that Johnson has highlighted.

Matthew Johnson's engaging paper raises a number of critical issues for contemporary archaeological reflection. The paper takes as a given the existence of archaeological theory as a disciplinary tradition of scholarly engagement, as a social fact of the vita archaeologica. But Johnson resists, rightly I think, the temptation to define ‘the archaeological’ intellectually, in reference to a discrete analytical terrain over which archaeology holds sovereignty. As a result, a considerable weight is put upon what we might think of as the sociology of theoretical work – concrete practices of theoretical production and reproduction located within institutions such as the university and the department. While Matthew's paper largely focuses on the gaps within the current constellatory field between the ethos of archaeological training and the pathos that drives our theoretical agenda, in these brief remarks I want to suggest a more undisciplined sense of archaeological theory, one rooted less in the field itself and more in a historically and socially shifting understanding of the pastness of the object world.

In Archaeological dialogues 12.2 Jean and John Comaroff explored the role of commensuration – the mechanisms that render equitable and negotiable different orders of value – in the production of society and history. While equilibration, standardization and conversion are implicated in most theories of money and commodification, their nature as social processes has not been adequately specified, above all in the construction of universalizing ideologies and modernist political and economic regimes. They pursue these processes in relation to one African theatre, examining the ways in which different regimes of value, brought up against one another in the encounter between the southern Tswana peoples and European colonizers, became the subject of both conflict and complex mediation. Cows, coin and contracts – which had the capacity to construct and negate difference – soon were invested here with magical qualities. But colonized peoples were also sensitive to the capacity of such currencies to enable or impede convertibility, and to the forms of abstraction and incorporation they permit. Which is why, in South Africa and elsewhere, those currencies often became metonymic of the contestations of value on which colonial struggles, tout court, were played out.

In this short essay they respond to the comments on their article by John Creighton and Laurier Turgeon.

Suggesting that archaeological theory both exists and does not at the same time is a wise move, so long as it opens the possibility for a range of answers and dialogue. In that respect I find myself in an agreement with Johnson, given that he takes up a piece of the theoretical minefield, and leaves plenty for others to engage with. Rather than debate his argument per se, therefore, I will endeavour to enlarge his essay in ways that will both contrast my position with his and further a greater conversation.

Archaeology in South Africa has always been political and no one has articulated this relationship better than Martin Hall in a career that has spanned both the political upheavals in South Africa and the theoretical transformations in archaeology over the past four decades. In research that has traversed the Iron Age to the Internet, he has explored the multifarious ways in which material culture operates in everyday life and how power is mobilized through materiality. He is also an example of a scholar who thoroughly embodies the very modern duality of the local and the global through his work, which is both highly engaged within the context of South Africa (and Africa in general), while also clearly international in its scope and relevance.

This paper examines the division that has grown up in contemporary archaeology between practical and theoretical branches of the discipline. It argues that the two sides of this schism are archaeological versions of objectivism and subjectivism, and that they really represent a single dualism. To break out of this, what is needed is an approach to thinking and doing archaeology that recognizes the embodied nature of archaeological engagements with material culture, together with an understanding of the emergent, relational character of archaeological data. In the light of this discussion, we attempt to redefine the building blocks of archaeology (material culture and the past), and to show with a case study how such an archaeology might generate new insights in practice.

First, a qualifier: the ‘response-to-the-response’ section of Archaeological dialogues is often the most entertaining part of the issue, but frequently the least intellectually rewarding. One feels Schadenfreude, partisan cheering and jeering, and bafflement in equal measure as contributors lock horns over this or that finer point of who has misrepresented whom. I am anxious to avoid readers reacting to what follows in such a manner, and so will concentrate on a very selective range of raised points that, to put it crudely, got me thinking.