Ethnoarchaeological research at highland Maya hunting shrines documents the material remains of interactions between two types of animate beings: humans and the forest. When either active agent enters the others' domain there are accompanying ceremonial activities to assuage the inherent danger, often leaving physical traces in the material record. These traces, if found in the archaeological record, might reveal similar ancient interactions. Using the material correlates of modern hunting rituals, we explore the utility of ethnoarchaeological research in identifying negotiations with non-human agents associated with the animate forestan active agent in many societies.

This special issue explores the archaeology of "animism" with attention placed on the material correlates of interactions with potent non-human agents. The topic of animisman ontology in which objects and other non-human beings possess souls, life-force and qualities of personhood (Tylor 1958(Tylor [1871)-has reemerged in the social sciences with the blurring of formerly taken-for-granted boundaries separating subject/object, self/ world, and person/thing (e.g., Bird-Davis 1999;Gell 1998;Latour 1993; Ingold 2006;Viveiros de Castro 2004). Animate objects and non-human beings are active members of many societies today, and presumably were so in the past. Who are these social actors? What do they do? How might we recognize them in an archaeological context? The contributors to this issue explore these questions.Why should archaeologists take animistic religious practices seriously? First, over 150 years of ethnographic literature documents the significance of animated material objects cross-culturally. Yet archaeologists have not developed methods and theories that embrace these perspectives. Recognizing that objects can and do possess purposeful agency for many peoples can move us closer to developing social models that reflect the primacy others placed on interactions with these important community members. Second, serious consideration of animism and non-human agency challenges inherited cultural categories that limit the questions and interpretations we bring to our research. Western intellectual tradition constructs a series of dualisms that slice apart animistic, relational, and indigenous perspectives, and, in the process, devalues peoples' lived experiences. In using terms such as "ascribed," "beliefs," or "symbolic

From the Classic period to the present, scholars have documented the widespread Maya belief in a supernatural guardian of the animals who must be appeased in hunting rituals. Despite this resilience, features and deposits entering the archaeological record as a result of hunting ceremonies remain largely unknown. I describe several contemporary and nineteenth-century shrines used for hunting rites in the Maya highlands of Guatemala. These sites contain a unique feature, a ritual fauna cache, which consists of animal remains secondarily deposited during hunting ceremonies. The formation of these caches is informed by two beliefs with historical time depth: (1) the belief in a guardian of animals and (2) the symbolic conflation of bone and regeneration. The unique life history of remains in hunting-related ritual fauna caches suggests a hypothesis for puzzling deposits of mammal remains recovered archaeologically in lowland Maya caves. These may have functioned in hunting rites designed to placate the animal guardian and ensure the regeneration of the species via ceremonies that incorporated the secondary discard of skeletal remains. A review of the ethnographic literature from the Lenca, Huichol, Nahua, Tlapanec, and Mixe areas reveals similar hunting rites indicating a broader Mesoamerican ritual practice.

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