A MEMORY OF HOME

or days or even weeks around the year A.D. 90, the sky over Ecuador’s Jama Valley must have been nearly black, even at the height of the day. Massive clouds of ash from the eruption of a volcano called Guagua Pichincha obscured the sun, buried crops of corn and manioc, and clogged rivers. The people living in the valley, who belonged to the Jama-Coaque culture, were forced to salvage as much of their harvest and as many of their belongings as possible and flee. Survivors of the initial eruption endured devastating lingering effiects. The land would not be habitable again for generations, and people did not return for more than 300 years. When they did, archaeological evidence suggests, they carried their culture and traditions intact. “There was resilience in the population that recolonized the valley,” says archaeologist James Zeidler, a research fellow at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, “and there must also have been a strong social memory