Sambaquis are monumental pre-colonial mounds built from millions of marine shells and sand thousands of years ago. Engineered as sacred collective cemeteries, these structures were sites where the bones of the dead were bathed in blood-red ochre and sealed under layers of white shell, physically lifting the ancestors higher to the sky to protect them from the tides. This ongoing project takes place in Guaratiba, a coastal village on the outermost edge of Rio de Janeiro, where archaeologists discovered more than thirty sambaquis. This is an exploration of a community living on the land of the sambaquis.