In Borake’s study, it is argued that anarchism is very helpful in two respects: for thinking about and theorizing the past and for analysing the archaeological record of large constructions (‘thing sites’) in the Scandinavian Iron and Middle Ages. I agree on both counts, though on the latter point my knowledge of the relevant archaeological and historical record is admittedly limited given that I work primarily in North America.

Anarchism has seemingly caught on in both the New and Old Worlds in recent years, as Borake lays out in her introductory sections and in listing the flurry of publications that address theoretical and empirical issues using an anarchism approach. Given that, it is worth taking a closer look at the mechanics of Borake’s claims. Tackling the theoretical side first, we can directly ask, what does anarchism as a theory do for us? Not everyone thinks it offers more than the tools we already have (see, for example, Smith 2016). It would perhaps be presumptuous to suggest that such statements reflect a misunderstanding of what anarchism is, but they may simply reflect a different understanding of the goals of applying anarchism theory.

Regardless, Borake’s answer is that anarchism does several things: it provides a way to understand the organization of decentralized societies, it offers a model for reshaping our own research practices, and – key, in my view – it provides a lens to look in fresh ways at cultural and political dynamics in the past. Interestingly, she adds that it offers a way to avoid the ethnocentrism of applying Western state models to those dynamics. I agree, though one could argue that anarchism as it is often mobilized is primarily a Western-derived body of theory.

That is a weighty menu of things anarchism can purportedly do for us. Smith (2016) argued that anthropological theory rather than the theory of anarchism allows us to do all this anyway. Perhaps there is some truth in that. Indeed, in a recent article on which I was an author (Furholt et al. 2019) we explicitly link the application of anarchism with that of Marxism, heterarchy, and collective-action theory. They do have similar goals – to address more fully the bottom-up rather than top-down ways in which social action occurs and power is distributed or wielded.

So why do we need anarchism specifically? Borake adeptly puts her finger on several points that might comprise a suitable answer. First, it puts an explicit form of agency into the hands of all. Anarchism directly stipulates a set of principles upon which people base their actions and practices – economically, socially and politically. Some might be sceptical of this, seeing in it a potentially indefensible universalism. But resistance has happened, does happen and will happen, as Borake points out in several places in her article. We must come to terms with that.

Specifically, people are and were invested in shaping their world, and in resisting those individuals and factions that attempt to alienate that prerogative from them. This is as true for the rank and file as for those with greater access to power and resources. The dynamics of how this was, is, and can be negotiated is critical, and an analytical task to which anarchism is well suited. Therein lies the key – it offers a set of explicit organizational principles against which we can measure practices on the ground in an empirical way using the archaeological record.

In the aggrandizer literature of the 1990s, the question posed was effectively, ‘why would people voluntarily submit to their own subjugation?’ (Clark and Blake 1994, 17; Hayden and Gargett 1990). The answer offered was because it was in their best interest. Aggrandizers made it in their best interest through skilful manipulation of social circumstances and material resources. But another answer is that in many cases they didn’t submit; aggrandizers were curtailed by overt and subversive resistance to their ends.

This point brings to the forefront one issue not fully addressed by Borake – the relationship between the theory of anarchism and the concept of egalitarianism. They are not the same thing – anarchism, with its emphasis on autonomy and decentralization, staves off centralization at a political level and maintains autonomy at a local level, but it does not necessarily maintain egalitarianism in all social contexts. Coast Salish societies of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America had significant inequalities, yet remained politically decentralized and maintained a high degree of autonomy in decision making (Grier 2017). In short, they traded off equality for autonomy.

The empirical component of Borake’s study offers a fresh look at monumental constructions in Iron Age and medieval Scandinavia (monumental in the sense of Grier and Schwadron 2017). Most critical is the notion that we should see in many of the collective, expansive and iterative construction works she considers not the heavy hand of centralized power, but the product of decentralized collective action. How such enduring works can serve to reify decentralized politics and local autonomy has been quite underappreciated. Collective action in the service of autonomy might seem incongruous, but only from starting assumptions that preclude it (see Trigger 1990).

We do get inklings of similar connections and practices from the archaeology of hunter-gatherer-fishers in the south-eastern US (e.g. Randall 2015; Wallis 2008), and similar to Borake’s study of Danevirke, there is a long arc to the construction process, often covering millennia, that reiterates, reinforces and at times remakes the social order over time. Similar ideas are also emerging from the Northwest Coast of North America (Grier, Angelbeck and McLay 2017).

The archaeological question then becomes, how do we confidently recognize the products of anarchic organization in the archaeological record? Does a slow additive emergence and repeated investment in material thing sites directly imply networks, justified authority, autonomy and decentralization? That is Borake’s assertion in using the term ‘thing sites’ to describe such places – that the materiality and sociality of these places are embedded in a recursive and persistent relationship through time, reflecting expressions of anarchism principles. This is something we should be evaluating in archaeological contexts around the world.

So I see strength in Borake’s application of anarchism as both a theoretical and an analytical framework. Ultimately this approach can provide a way to rethink aspects of the material record of collective action and its relation to a core set of principles that were undoubtedly operating in many social contexts in the past. In this sense, it offers a bottom-up theoretical perspective that can allow us to – in Borake’s words – ‘gain a more complex and nuanced understanding of how societies operate’ (p. 62; see also Furholt et al. 2019).