Introducing the Vibrancy of Ruins in Ancient Mesoamerica

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Vibrancy of Ruins: Ruination Studies in Ancient Mesoamerica" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper introduces the session by discussing recent ideas advanced by ruination studies and the material turn, as well as the role of ruins in Mesoamerican communities. Combining concepts from ruination studies and the “New Materialist” perspective helps us to understand ancient communities as formed by assemblages of humans and nonhumans. In ancient Mesoamerica, ruins were not static backgrounds for human actions. Ruins, along with animals, substances, things, and landscapes, among other actors, were nonhuman agents that were critical in the emergence and resilience of communities. Such interpretation is rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing in Mesoamerica. This paper will also briefly discuss archaeological, historic, and ethnographic data to illustrate that Indigenous peoples considered ruins as dynamic constituents of communities in Mesoamerica long before the European invasions that started in the sixteenth century. This paper will provide background on and set the stage for the case studies that will be discussed in this session.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Vibrancy of Ruins: Ruination Studies in Ancient Mesoamerica   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35706.0