The heritage protection of Maroon sacred geographies, including cemeteries in the Americas has revealed a series of gaps in national and regional legislation, responding to systemic violence displaying different forms of anti-blackness discourses and silences within the official historical narratives. In this context, heritage recognition and revitalization of the first archaeologically studied Afro-descendant cemetery in Ecuador, "Garden of Memory Martina Carrillo," in the Northern Andes of South America, has faced various challenges at different levels. Based on a profound sense of community and respect for the African maroon ancestors, these obstacles have led to the Afro-Ecuadorian social mobilization for the attainment of collective rights. Despite the dispute over the Afro-Ecuadorian heritage, the Maroon ontologies and philosophies that are in place on the Pantheon of the Ancestors establish a logic of reviving the feelings, knowledge, and actions of liberation in the same exercise of spirituality based on Ubuntu.

This article, and therefore presentation, proposes a critical analysis to reconfigure and redefine an “Afro-Ecuadorian archaeology.” This epistemological rupture is reasonable and necessary to expand the narratives that transit the disciplines. We respond to the maroon need to talk about ourselves, from our voice, experiences, and ontological concepts. With an Afro-epistemological approach, we define the investigative work we carry out as an exercise of marronage that is part of the long-standing battle of the Afro-Ecuadorian people for the recognition of our existence, history, and rights. Within this context, we present the efforts of those who inhabit the Afro-Ecuadorian Ancestral Territory to resignify our knowledge and existence through the project "Afro-Ecuadorian Memory Sites in the Ancestral Territory of Chota-La Concepción and Salinas: Territory, Culture, and Heritage"

International standards regulate cultural heritage, focusing historically on sites aligned with nation-building ideologies and systematically erasing other histories. Material heritage policies are shaped by constitutional amendments and policy shifts towards multiculturalism, aiming to empower non-dominant populations with human rights frameworks for active participation in national politics. However, Black, Indigenous, and Campesino (working-class people from predominantly rural environments) movements have remained critical of the failures of these policies to provide tangible solutions to their demands. Case studies in Colombia, Ecuador, and the Caribbean demonstrate the legislative history that informs archaeological sites of Black and Indigenous communities. Human rights violations are exacerbated by the neoliberal global crisis, disproportionately impacting vulnerable populations. Archaeology can involve political collaboration to protect ancestral sites, work with contemporary descendants, and situate research within Black and Indigenous socio-political frameworks. We outline how this has been implemented in the discipline and how communities can benefit directly from academic projects.

In the courtyard of her house, Juana began to knead the sand and red mud she had collected earlier from the Palenque stream. It had been a long time since she had made "clay pots", but she insisted that she had not forgotten it. It was a craft she had learned from her mother and grandmother. Sitting on the floor, she began to raise new pots by taking lumps of clay and pressing them onto a small plate. Meanwhile, with her words and gestures, she traveled through the Palenque of her childhood and other nearby places. Based on the ceramic production workshop held in 2017 in the Afro-descendant community of San Basilio de Palenque, I propose a reflection on the relationship between time, materiality, and space. The plasticity of the clay and the potters' skill in handling it act as chronotopes of Maroon women's stories of resistance in northern Colombia.