In 1995, shortly after the publication of the first edition of Living with the Ancestors, Evon Z. Vogt — a preeminent ethnographer of twentieth-century Mayan peoples of highland Chiapas — sent me a congratulatory note typed on stationery. I still cherish the letter and it serves to highlight the many ways in which the world has changed since 1995. Sadly, in 2004, Vogt died and Maya Studies lost an esteemed scholar and invaluable colleague. Since 1995, Maya hieroglyphic decipherment has matured, stabilized, and yielded rich insights into the lives and deaths of Classic Maya royalty. Expansion — on a significant scale — of archaeological investigation into text-free contexts, likewise, has enriched and complicated simplistic scenarios of how “the 99%” lived and prospered. In the twenty-first century, colleagues are more likely to blog their opinions about recently published books than send a letter via U.S. Postal Service.

During the years that followed the publication of the first edition, responses to Living with the Ancestors ranged across a wide spectrum. Some reviewers commented that the book was more synthetic than original and others characterized it as the first book to successfully straddle the (then) chasm between processual and postprocessual archaeology (not a conscious goal of the composition). Still others expressed reservations about the assertion that subfloor burial practices materialized sedimented histories with a genealogical intent. But love it or hate it, the book proved useful and its shelf life endured beyond its print run.