ABSTRACT
My aim in this chapter is to help in theorizing the lowly measurement phase of archaeological research, on our way to 'make sense' of change and variation in material culture — the material precedents and products of human behaviour. If mensuration is not thoroughly embedded within one's agenda, it can torpedo one's research through the back door. The most convincing hypothetical argument or the most massive interpretive tour de force must ultimately fail if the points where measurements enter the research stream, and the measurements themselves, are not carefully theorized. The argument is presented here in support of those paradigms interested in human agency, in the priority of the social, and in understanding and explaining change and variation in humans and in the material products and precedents of their behaviour.
