Human intelligence and its evolution has always been inextricably linked with the material forms people make. Archaeology and anthropology may well testify that human beings are not merely embedded in a rich and changing universe of things, rather, human cognitive and social life is a process genuinely mediated and often constituted by them. The specific details, varieties and forms of that process are not well understood and demand cross-disciplinary approach. This paper argues for the need to add a strong material culture-dimension of research in the area of 4E (embodied–embedded–extended–enactive) cognition. Material Engagement Theory (MET) is proposed as a framework suitable for bridging the analytical gap between 4Es cognition and the study of material culture. The notion of ‘thing-ing’ is used to draw attention to the modes of cognitive life instantiated in acts of thinking and feeling with, through and about things.
