Assemblages

Assemblages refer to collections of items that have been gathered or the act of gathering them. The word originates from the French assembler. In everyday language it can refer to any group assembled for a purpose, and in the arts it denotes a three-dimensional work made from found or discarded objects.

In ecology and biogeography, a species assemblage is the group of species that co-occur in a defined area and time. This concept helps describe community structure and patterns of diversity, including species richness, relative abundance, and turnover across space (beta diversity) or through time (succession). Assemblages are studied through surveys and multivariate analyses that compare composition among sites or habitats.

In paleontology and archaeology, an assemblage denotes all specimens found together within a defined context, such as a fossil bed or a stratigraphic layer, or all artifacts recovered from a site. Such assemblages aid interpretations of past environments, economies, and cultural practices by emphasizing co-occurrence and association among items.

In art and design, assemblage is a technique in which a work is constructed by combining disparate found objects and materials into a cohesive sculpture or mixed-media piece. It is associated with 20th-century avant-garde movements and has parallels with collage, bricolage, and constructivist practices.

See also fossil assemblage, species assemblage, assemblage art.