Through the control of social memory and the dead, household members in Argentinian Andean early Formative villages often used primary and secondary mortuary practices to negotiate power and identity among the living. In this paper, we explore the material evidence obtained in the large-scale salvage excavations of El Cadillal, Argentina, where 51 burials were recovered from three burial sites. Between A.D. 0 and 900, people living in the southeastern rainforests placed deceased household members in ceramic urns and, less frequently, inside of rock enclosures and pits surrounded by a range of grave offerings. Drawing upon this case study, we attempt to disentangle the complex web of relationships between the dead, the living, and the El Cadillal community in order to assess how social memories were crafted through primary and secondary mortuary events and how the repetition of mortuary rituals created a social landscape and memories of the dead.