This edited volume by Brent Woodfill and Lucia Henderson explores the diverse non-human persons that have populated—and continue to populate—the Indigenous Americas, advancing an ‘ontological archaeology’ nourished by Indigenous philosophy, linguistics and ethnography to guide interpretations of the past. Andean wak’as (landscape features endowed with vitality and veneration), the Mapuche Treng Treng hills, and the Dakota Wakinyan Oyate (Thunder Beings) are among the many entities that guide us toward an expanded notion of personhood, enabling a deeper understanding of Amerindian relational onto-logies.
The book’s first part takes the reader to North and Central America, moving chapter by chapter through different ‘existencescapes’, to use Steve Langdon’s term (p.29). Langdon’s detailed account of the Tlingit world of Southeast Alaska and Canada illustrates how relational engagement unfolds with crafted materials, among other aspects. Notably, he employs storytelling to convey these dimensions, drawing on a method commonly used in the transmission of Indigenous knowledge. The following contribution, by David Maki et al., examines the Thunder Beings of Turtle Island (Dakota homeland) both ethnographically and materially, identifying physical and magnetic traces (lightning-induced remanent magnetisation, LIRM) attributed to these beings and developing a methodology for their archaeological interpretation. This stands out as one of the strongest chapters and a compelling example of a truly “braided science approach” (pp.53 & 183), interweaving Western scientific methods with Indigenous knowledge.
Some of the key theoretical debates of this first section are also worth highlighting. Margaret Spivey-Faulkner offers a thorough critique of Western animate/inanimate dichotomies, through a linguistic analysis of Muscogee (US Southeast) and two key concepts proposed by Muscogee intellectuals: the notion of ‘natural democracy’, where all beings share a dialogical plane (Fixico Reference Fixico2003); and the idea of non-binary dualism, in which complementarity rather than opposition prevails (Waters Reference Waters2004). Another valuable contribution comes from the editors, who analyse the role of animated landscapes in the Classic Maya economy. Moving beyond classical economics approaches, they consider ‘hidden costs’ and obligations to non-human actors in circuits of production, transport and exchange—for example, negotiations with cave-persons, with whom political and economic relationships through offerings have been maintained for centuries. Joel Palka and Alice Balsanelli likewise characterise such animated landscapes, but in ritual terms among both the contemporary Lacandon and the Ancient Maya of Chiapas, Mexico.
The second part turns to South America, presenting two thought-provoking case studies that focus on the agency of Andean wak’as. Dennis Ogburn and colleagues analyse quarry wak’as and their extracted stones, central to the construction of special buildings in Inka Cusco. The authors emphasise the intrinsic power of those stones (as extensions of their quarries), challenging the notion of quarrying as a purely extractive practice. Nicola Sharratt and Patrick Williams examine the role of apus (ancestral sacred mountains with kinship ties to communities) in clay procurement in the Moquegua Valley, Peru. They call for expanding archaeometric approaches towards an ‘animate archaeometry’ (p.236)—another strong example of integrating Indigenous knowledge. Continuing with ancestral topographies further south, Jacob Sauer traces the Treng Treng hills among the Mapuche people of southern Chile, highlighting their enduring role as protectors and allies in both landscape and Mapuche life.
This section also addresses aspects of Amazonian cosmology, described by A.C. Roosevelt in a chapter that defines this ontology as animist and traces its most relevant beings through representations in the polychrome tradition (rock art, ceramics, drawings) from antiquity to the present. Several of the terms that she and other authors use are problematised in Carolyn Dean’s discussion chapter, ‘Words about words’. Dean highlights concepts she regards as participating in a “stealth coloniality” (p.324), including “myth”, “prehistoric”, “Indigenous Americas”, “animism” and “shamanism”. She asks why, 50 years after the decolonial turn, some scholars continue to rely on terms that remain aligned with Euro-Western understandings (p.314). While I share some of Dean’s criticisms—and value her alignment with the decolonial turn—I believe the problem often begins precisely there: in remaining only at the level of words. In fact, in the book’s Introduction, the editors—while explaining why most contributors and cited authors are based in the USA—employed the categories “Indigenous, white, and Hispanic” (p.3) to argue that, at the very least, the group was diverse. As a Latin American scholar based at a South American university, I found this categorisation problematic, as it oversimplifies identities that are heterogeneous and intersecting. Such framing reproduces the very centre–periphery tensions the editors themselves acknowledge. Ultimately, beyond words, actions matter: including diverse scholars based in Global South institutions would significantly enrich the dialogue and help articulate diversity in more situated and intersectional ways.
I agree with Spivey-Faulkner that archaeologists have much to learn from Indigenous communities, beginning with language. Furthermore, the ontological turn often multiplies our terminologies—other-than-human, more-than-human, metapersons, and so forth. Yet the “living landscapes” (p.xiv) or “existencescapes” are not only inhabited, constructed and interpreted through words, they are also lived and negotiated in practice. Fascinating and powerful beings—often imbued with forces that Western scholars still struggle to acknowledge—interpellate us beyond discourse, as the Thunder Beings do through their effects on stone and on human bodies. If we are to commit to integrated approaches from a decolonial stance, we must allow ourselves to be affected by these relations, recognising non-human entities as part of the political field of negotiation and learning to speak their languages—which often exceed the scientific-academic limits. An excellent example is the ritual pagos to an apu, which are offerings of gratitude, respect, and requests for permission, performed by a curandero to enable archaeological excavation in a sacred place, as mentioned by Sharratt and Williams. This practice is ethically and politically consistent with hybrid and inclusive perspectives.
This brings us to the Epilogue by Jim Wanbdi Hanyetu Rock, which I must admit I initially found difficult, even puzzling, particularly his practice of literally counting the words and paragraphs of his own chapter as well as those of the other contributions to the volume. This meticulous quantification eventually allowed the book to be translated into a quipu (an Inka method of keeping records and communicating information through strings and knots), something I found truly remarkable. I did not expect that crossover: a contemporary Dakota scholar reinterpreting and enacting Inka embodied and material language, a true Dakota quipucamayoc (quipu-interpreter). His contribution undoubtedly adds both lucidity and grounding to the volume, while inviting us to explore alternative formats that move beyond written and spoken words, touching the realm of the sensory. At the same time, the author amplifies the voices of other Indigenous peoples to denounce colonial violence and the extractivist threats that affect both human and non-human members of these communities.
This last point brings us to what I consider the book’s most important and enduring reflection. Drawing on observations of the editors, the challenge of an “ontological archaeology” lies not only in expanding our definition of who and what populated past worlds, but also in more fully considering contemporary Indigenous beliefs that render those worlds and people meaningful in the present (p.xv). Crucially, I would add that if we are to become entangled in these relational ontologies, we must also listen to the demands of both human and non-human participants across the Indigenous Americas and respond accordingly. Today, when different forms of extractivism (such as lithium mining in the Andes, the expansion of monocropping, and deliberately set fires in Amazonia) threaten many of the non-humans we seek to envision, archaeology cannot remain neutral, nor be confined just to the discursive.
