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.

Although the Mixteca region has witnessed a long period of human occupation from before village societies were established to the present, traditional archaeological narratives tend to simplify this history by emphasizing singular points of origin and radical moments of change. Based on decolonial perspectives, we examine how persistence may be a more suitable framework for understanding the long history of human occupation in the region. Using information from three archaeological projects, this article analyzes the enduring histories of household practices at the site of Etlatongo in the Nochixtlan Valley. We focus on the construction of domestic spaces over three different periods in the long occupation of the site: during the latter half of the Early Formative (1400–1000 BC), the late Middle Formative (500–300 BC), and the Postclassic (AD 900–1500s). By analyzing the changing continuities of domestic practices at Etlatongo, this study contributes to scholarship examining the persistence of Indigenous communities in Mesoamerica.

Este artículo presenta un resumen de los resultados más sobresalientes de las últimas cuatro temporadas de excavación y dos temporadas de mapeo y recorrido sistemático en el sitio de Cerro Jazmín, ubicado en la Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca, México. Los trabajos arqueológicos nos han permitido documentar un importante asentamiento urbano que se remonta al Formativo tardío (300 aC) y un período inicial de florecimiento urbano del 300 aC al 300 dC. Nuestras excavaciones hasta ahora apuntan a un período de declive poblacional durante la época Clásica y a una renovada ocupación Posclásica iniciando alrededor del año 1000 dC. Se resumen los resultados de excavaciones en espacios monumentales y públicos, así como de espacios domésticos y posibles áreas de producción y almacenamiento. Se cuenta ahora con una muestra de 65 individuos cuyos datos bioarqueológicos e isotópicos nos permiten saber sobre la salud, dieta y aspectos de la calidad de vida en la antigua ciudad.