In this CSNM presentation we work through case studies drawn from current research on the Argive Survey Project in Greece, Shanks, Pearson, and McLucas's theater/archaeology, and from the field of science and technology studies.

We propose that action be conceived less as focused upon intentional agents and more as a distributed and collective realm that encompasses things (as well as other social and cultural forms) - what we have called heterogeneous networks, following John Law and others in the history and sociology of technology. This analytical levelling of people and things, their treatment in symmetry, poses a problem for human-centered interpretation in the humanities because it re-establishes relationships with the material world outside of the subject/object paradigm upon which most interpretation rests. A rich suite of schemes for dealing with the complexities of how science transforms the material world, for example, have been developed within this posthuman turn. Still, these schemes are often embedded in traditional media and modes of documentation - they fall short when it comes to conveying those properties of the material world encountered through human sensation and experience in scientific practice.We addresse this shortcoming by highlighting the importance of media, both old and new (digital), as modes of engagement through which we mobilize, manifest, and materialize aspects of the material world (the archaeological) that are denied by our traditional forms of documentation.

To this end, we articulate nine paths to a posthuman notion of mediation through which aspects of the material world can be manifested, brought forth and disseminated. We discuss the status of knowledge claims within this kind of work and argue that its epistemology is a robust one.