Trine Louise Borake argues here that anarchism can open up new interpretive terrain in our archaeological analyses. For many archaeologists, our cultural habitus, resulting from state-centred lives, can lead to default positions and/or ethnocentric biases that can obscure as much as they may reveal about the archaeological record of non-state societies. I agree with Borake that anarchism as an interpretive framework is especially important for cases concerning societies that blur boundaries between the egalitarian and the hierarchical. In my own research I have been involved in some assessments of the Iron Age (Angelbeck in press), but this period is not my primary area of specialization. I welcome Borake’s assessments in these cases from the Scandinavian Iron Age and Middle Ages, but I will constrain my commentary primarily to the theoretical approach presented here.

Borake offers that anarchism can provide an alternative approach to the archaeological record. I agree that, too often, archaeologists can emphasize the centralized aspects of societies, highlighting the elite households, administrative centres, or the inner sanctum of temple priests. In so doing, the interpretive histories can omit the livelihoods of the majority of people. Borake provides a perspective that does not view the record from the top of the mound, as it were, or the archaeological history of ‘great men’, but instead allows for more of a ‘people’s archaeology’. When a historical reconstruction focuses on the aristocratic or upper class, the elites are framed as active agents, with the implication that other classes are merely passive observers of historical changes generated and created by the elites. Anarchism helps to counter such portrayals. As Borake phrases it, anarchist approaches help us to view intentionality in individuals and local groups as well, such that social organizations of whatever formation – including egalitarian or decentralized societies – are viewed as actively maintained social formations by all who form them, not just as structures led or formed by elites. Rather, the networked organization of thing sites of Late Iron Age Scandinavia, the communally constructed defences of Danevirke, or the nomadic mobility or migration of multiple peoples to avoid centralized concentrations of power, I concur, are examples of anarchistic impulses of peoples.

Borake argues for a ‘third way’ of applying anarchist analyses, meaning not restricting its analysis to non-state societies (first) or applying it critically to current archaeological practices (second). Her third approach is to apply an anarchist approach to any type of society in the past, whether non-state or state. (I suppose, to extend her construction further, we could consider a fourth way of applying anarchist approaches, which would apply towards how our forms of archaeological organization in the past affected our interpretations then – not just examining power relations in the present context of archaeology, but also how past contexts of archaeological practice may have been affected by such hierarchical structures, whether in narratives from centralized states, archaeologies in colonial contexts, archaeologies done in highly centralized academic or CRM-based projects, archaeologies written primarily by men in past patriarchal structures, and so on. Broadly understood, such analyses of past power structures of archaeology have shown that context of interpretation in the present absolutely shapes interpretations of the past.) While she might be correct that anarchist-related approaches have been applied to non-state societies, historically anarchist theorists have not intended it that way. For instance, for Kropotkin, in his evolutionary and historical analyses in Mutual Aid (first published 1902) or The state. Its historic role (first published 1898), any period of history, including the present, can be assessed through an anarchist lens – not just those that appear already to be anarchies, decentralized and heterarchical or egalitarian. In his view, there are two opposed trends throughout human relationships in history, those that promote principles of cooperation, local autonomy and mutual aid (social aspects favoured in anarchism), and those that are imperial, state-based forces that try to suppress those principles in preference for discipline, subservience and obedience to authorities by decree or coercion (these have an individualist focus). In such a way, an anarchist approach can be broadly applied, even in terms of how centralized societies maintain their power and undermine resistance. I appreciate Borake’s intriguing inclusion of cultural narratives that emphasize cooperative acts of resistance (Spartacus, Asterix, etc.) – such narratives are still present even within contemporary animated Western film intended for children and families (e.g. A bug’s life, Chicken run). If such resistance narratives are a major trend in history, as Kropotkin advocates, then they should exist for any society.

Borake aimed to apply anarchism ‘in much the same way as Marxism has been applied to social science for years’ (p. 62). Multiple forms of analytical methods have arisen from within Marxism (Giddens 1979; Spriggs 1984), including the dialectic approach to historical change, a basis in economic materialism, modes of production analysis, interactions of economic base and ideological superstructure, an emphasis on labour, class struggle as a motor of history, commodity fetishism, and others. All of these analyses work within the overarching Marxist framework of historical materialism. While Marxism is no doubt focused on Marx centrally, anarchism draws upon a heterarchy of major theorists, bringing together multiple vantage points on issues of power in human relationships, whether in domination or resistance.

Utilizing the principles of anarchism are one such elaboration of this theory, as shown here by Borake, using network organization, the justification of authorities, or active decentralization. Other forms of analysis could be articulated that include related principles of individual and local autonomy (as opposed to social constraints), forms of cooperation or mutual aid (instead of enforced structures of command), alliances of voluntary association (in contrast to involuntary forms), gift-exchange economies (as opposed to commodity-based), and so on.

The aim, I would argue, is not to simply identify anarchistic trends in past societies – those were always there, within any society. Rather, these approaches aid in seeing how power dynamics play out within and between societies over time, as forms of autonomy are expressed or repressed, expanded or restricted; as configurations of association are multiplicitous or monistic; as social structures centralize or decentralize; and so on. Many principles related to anarchism can provide an archaeological correlate as expressed within the society under focus, and such assessments can integrate with other principles, to broaden the analysis further. Even so, there is no ultimate blueprint or detailed outline for how anarchism should ideally play out; for us as archaeologists, that is less of a concern in any event. Interpretation is more about how we can understand the sociopolitical dynamics of the past, as well as how we can evaluate and consider our relationships in the academic or applied settings, in how we marshal our efforts towards understanding the past. In so doing, it’s important to recognize the shared overlap between Marxism and anarchism, who have both acted together and debated each other for well over a century, each sharpening the views of the other. Randall McGuire (2012, 576) has emphasized that we ‘should embrace the intersections and the tensions between anarchism and Marxism … Both lead us to critical understandings of our noncapitalist pasts’. Elsewhere, I have tried to show how both approaches can integrate (Angelbeck 2017), as there are many shared avenues of concern, if different points of departure.

Again, the theory of anarchism primarily concerns methods of power in relationships, which places it at the heart of what constitutes the proper concern of social sciences (Russell 2004; Flyvbjerg 2001). Moreover, anarchism concerns various ways to implement such principles in practice, as appropriate for the cultural or environmental circumstances. Many principles concern resisting the concentration and centralization of power in ways that are seen as not justified.

Other aspects of anarchism concern the harnessing of power collectively, whether for the accomplishment of economic, religious, or recreational projects, or in movements of resistance, as emphasized by Borake here. The theory concerns both types of power expression. Too often, we can limit our use of ‘power’ to refer to top-down exertions of power, as in those ‘with power’ or ‘in power’; these are ‘vertical’ forms of power. Yet just as important are forms of power that are exercised in conjunction, through alliance, or what is referred to as the ‘horizontal power’ of collectivities. It is important to recognize multiple forms if we are to adequately theorize social life. To reserve the use of ‘power’ for only vertical forms literally disempowers any consciousness of collective capability, and may contribute to a lack of understanding of such horizontal efforts in the past societies we investigate.

Anarchism provides a reminder that state and society are separate phenomena. This is emphasized by Pierre Clastres (1987) in Society against the state. Too often, we can lazily slip into equating the two as one and the same, which is not helpful for understanding sociopolitical dynamics in the past. Rather, Clastres stressed that the ‘state’ is a sociopolitical structure organized often by a subset of the society overall; we should extend such to any structure of political hierarchy, not just states, but chiefdoms, and other formations, especially those of dominance. As Borake emphasizes here, these need to be evaluated for whether they are viewed as justified in their position of hierarchy and how they apply their power.

In this article, Borake shows how an anarchist perspective can provide alternative and useful interpretations for cases in Scandinavian culture history, and by extension how such analyses might be applicable for archaeohistorical analyses of other areas and times. Her cases here have been at a macro scale, given the orientation; however, these cases provide examples of how such analyses could be carried out at smaller or finer scales of analysis, and I look forward to seeing such work expand and reorient our understandings of the past.