ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the value of a language for the articulation of an archaeological topology of place that is concerned with the connectivity of intelligible material patterns, the emergent and mobile nature of conceptual boundaries in conjunction with a normative understanding of the world, and the issue of who or what is an "agent" within situated practices. Ultimately, explanation of the world emerges in the form of a situated commentary seemingly unscathed through participative engagement with a material world. In its various articulations, place is gradually becoming a central concept within archaeology. This is a welcome development: notions of place are integral to the complex diversity of life, and archaeology is deeply embedded within processes of place-making and, by virtue of the connectedness of places, world-making. This requires a serious consideration of the ontological basis of object systems in general, which, in the context of place, has benefited from the language of assembly and the intra-action of bodies within material surroundings.
