ABSTRACT
Taking seriously the challenge of regarding archaeological practice as a source of theoretical inspiration, this chapter reviews some of the approaches while critically exploring alternative ways of languaging corporeal realities in archaeology. The chapter focuses on what it means for knowledge to occur 'at the trowel's edge'. It expresses that through friction, knowledge and enskilment are mutually crafted at the trowel's edge, creating multiple temporal trajectories unfolding in opposite directions. The chapter reviews the work of Edgeworth, who, in his seminal ethnography of archaeological practices, produced a contrasting 'ontology of the trowel'. It also expresses that because archaeology is closer to practices such as sculpting, dissecting or weaving than it is to assembling or interpreting precast blocks and meanings, knowledge in archaeology is ultimately irreversible and therefore bound to the memory of practitioners. The pointing trowel is currently the favourite excavation tool among archaeologists.
