The concept of ethnicity is a prevailing explanatory device in studies of colonial architecture. This paper argues for decentring ethnicity in buildings research through treating buildings as 'assemblages' of both material and social 'things'. Drawing on a case study from the late 19 thcentury settler landscape of Manitoba, Canada, we illustrate how settler architectureconceived of as an 'assemblage'-can shed light on the events, processes and material consequences of homesteading in a new land. Through de-centring ethnicity as a determining factor in building projects the role of settler architecture as a material indicator of resistance or assimilation becomes more easily questioned. An archaeological interpretation of buildings as assemblages draws attention towards their materiality and the embodied experiences of building by highlighting the historical and geographical contingencies of the settlement landscape.

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This paper takes as its starting point two landscapes of waste and connects them through an account of the intensification of production and consumption of textiles in modernising Iceland. Archaeological waste assemblages and historical resources are used to illustrate the consumption and disposal of clothing throughout the 19th century, which is juxtaposed with archaeological and historical studies into sheep rearing, grazing pressures and wool production. The paper argues that the economic notion of waste and the capitalist system from which it originates create landscapes of waste. It stipulates that many solutions which have been forwarded to the waste crisis are still conceived of within this socio-economic system. Historicizing waste creation demonstrates the urgency for alternative answers and the need to resist the movement of materials through the cycle of resource extraction, production, consumption and recycling, and further away from sites of use.