People of Clay and Stone: Indexing Other-than-human Animacy and Collective Identity in Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico

This paper analyzes the unique assemblages of humans and other-than-humans animated the sacred landscape of Cerro de la Virgen, a hilltop site occupied during the Formative period (1800 BCE – 250 CE) in the lower Río Verde Valley of coastal Oaxaca, Mexico. Commensalism in the region increased markedly in scope and complexity throughout the Formative period, culminating in the region’s first polity at 100 CE. Feasting practices became relatively standardized, but the placement of objects and bodies in public architecture—a set of collective practices associated with the vital forces that animated the cosmos—varied considerably from site to site during the late Terminal Formative period (150 BC—250 CE). Lower Verde scholars have argued that these idiosyncrasies reflect the myriad collective identities of the region’s hinterland communities—a pattern rooted in local affiliations that may have conflicted with an expanding regional identity centered at the urban center of Río Viejo. I augment this discussion by highlighting the role that the materiality of the landscape, present before humans even occupied the region, played in the construction of collective identity. I develop an interpretive approach that pays special attention to Indigenous concepts of ontology, particularly those related to animacy and its transference, and utilizes the semiosis of American philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce, to elucidate meaning from deposits of cached objects. I argue that animate qualities assembled through fired clay and chiseled stone at Cerro de la Virgen afforded a ritual pattern that was unique in coastal Oaxaca at the end of the Formative.