The Animacy and Social Memory of Ruins at Etlatongo, Oaxaca

Abstract Rather than static traces of the past, ruins and ancient material objects represent dynamic and important generative components of communities. A relational ontology views objects and matter as animate; here we focus on their collaborative potential with humans to inspire memory practices that bring together ancestors and living humans, things, and landscapes in recursive relationships. Situated at Etlatongo in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca, Mexico, our research interrogates broader Mixtec and Mesoamerican perspectives on things, which indicates certain materials and ruined places could be especially potent, imbued with cosmogonic energy from previous eras. Such material had animating properties as well as inspiring memorial narratives. Continuously occupied for more than 3,500 years, Etlatongo illustrates dynamic and varied interactions with past places and things. We present two precontact archaeological case studies that highlight these persistent engagements with the past: the first focuses on the reuse and reincorporation of earlier public architecture while the second features the selection and generative power of ancient ceramic figurine heads in two later domestic settings.