“Assemblage” has many uses, all concerning bringing things together. It comes from the French verb “assembler,” meaning “to put together” or “to bring together,” and as an English noun, it has been in use since the mid-17th century. The most simple meaning of “assemblage” is a collection of people or things, but it can be more specific or it can refer to the aggregate, or the sum total of something. In biology, an assemblage is a group of organisms sharing a common situation, such as a microhabitat, essentially by chance. To archaeologists, an assemblage is “the total of related culture traits and artifacts associated with any one archaeological manifestation.” Under a different pronunciation (ah-sahm-BLAZH), an assemblage is an artistic composition made from scraps of various materials, or the name of the art technique itself.