This essay argues that Romanization revolves around understanding objects in motion and that Roman archaeologists should therefore focus on (1) globalization theory and (2) material-culture studies as important theoretical directions for the (near) future. The present state and scope of the Romanization debate, however, seem to prevent a fruitful development in that direction. The first part of this paper therefore briefly analyses the Romanization debate and argues that large parts of ‘Anglo-Saxon Roman archaeology’ have never been really post-colonial, but in fact from the mid-1990s onwards developed a theoretical position that should be characterized as anti-colonial. This ideologically motivated development has resulted in several unhealthy divides within the field, as well as in an uncomfortable ending of the Romanization debate. The present consensus within English-speaking Roman archaeology ‘to do away with Romanization’ does not seem to get us at all ‘beyond Romans and Natives’, and, moreover, has effectively halted most of the discussion about how to understand and conceptualize ‘Rome’. The second part of the article presents two propositions outlining how to move forward: globalization theory and material-culture studies. Through this focus we will be able to better understand ‘Rome’ as (indicating) objects in motion and the human–thing entanglements resulting from a remarkable punctuation of connectivity. This focus is important as an alternative perspective to all existing narratives about Romanization because these remain fundamentally historical, in the sense that they reduce objects to expressions (of identity) alone. It is time for our discussions about ‘Rome’ to move ‘beyond representation’ and to become genuinely archaeological at last, by making material culture, with its agency and materiality, central to the analyses.

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I am grateful to Fernández-Götz et al. (2020) for raising an important question regarding 'the material turn' within Roman studies in particular, and post-humanism in general. What, precisely, are the intellectual, methodological, theoretical and ethical consequences at stake with this paradigmatic shift? This aspect has indeed remained underdeveloped in the discussions as part of, and following, the 2014 'Romanisation debate' in Archaeological Dialogues. Fernández-Götz et al. (2020) raise the concern that a recognition of the active role of material culture will result in an underestimation of human responsibility and suffering, and will limit archaeology's capacity for social critique. They even suggest that proponents of such views will produce a "sanitised past" (Fernández-Götz et al. 2020: 1630-1639) that risks obscuring or even forgetting the human dark side of history. This is an important admonition, particularly as our field continues to debate and develop the practicalities of these ideas. While I therefore applaud the discussion that their debate piece will stimulate, I consider its main intellectual critique to be misconceived. Symmetrical approaches do not forget about humans or blot out human agency, responsibility or ethical issues. They provide a more complete understanding of world history that should also include the agency of things (Hodder 2019). Ethics, and all the other issues that Fernández-Götz et al. (2020) urge us to consider, are still in play. The point is that these are now put into better perspective-pace the quote from Woolf (2017: 216)-as objects are no longer reduced to passive proxies of human intention. Within the philosophical debate on (flat) ontologies, the critique that these approaches would neglect the issue of power has already been effectively countered (e.g. Bryant 2011; Harman 2018): flat ontologies do not lead to 'flat' ethics. Indeed, Fernández-Götz et al. (2020: 1630-1639) reach a similar conclusion themselves, stating that it is the "bidirectional process in which people create material culture while simultaneously being constructed by it that leads to warfare and exploitation in new ways [my emphasis]". I have previously advocated exactly this type of analysis (Versluys 2014)-one that concerns power and Roman violence simultaneously. The case studies presented by Fernández-Götz et al. (2020) show what really is at stake for the authors in terms of our interpretation of the Roman world: that we should not forget about the dark side of Roman state power. I fully agree with that, and their examples illustrate how much progress has been made. New technologies and data allow for a focus on the direct social impact of conquest, and bring mass violence and enslavement into sharper perspective. The archaeology of rural communities shows the massive impact, demographic and otherwise,

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