The Vibrancy of Ruins: Ruination Studies in Ancient Mesoamerica

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Vibrancy of Ruins: Ruination Studies in Ancient Mesoamerica" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The purpose of this symposium is to generate discussions on the ways in which ruined and decaying buildings contributed to the ongoing constitution of communities in ancient Mesoamerica. Symposium participants will use archaeological and historical data and recent ideas advanced by ruination studies and the material turn to examine the life history of ruins in precolumbian times and their relations to the materiality of community. Ruination studies recognize that ruins persist and can affect people long after buildings fall to ruin. The material turn focuses on the durability and ever-changing materiality of ruins and their active role in relations with people in ways that can both facilitate and disrupt human projects. This symposium will bring together a group of scholars to challenge a Western/Romantic view of ancient Mesoamerican ruins as deserted spaces, devoid of vibrancy and meaning for precolumbian Indigenous peoples. The participants in this session will offer a glimpse of an Indigenous perspective on ruins, where ruins were places that were important in the constitution of community life and sources of cultural identity in ancient Mesoamerica.