Understanding Wari Empire and Its Aftermath through Archeology

​From around 600 to 1000 AD, the Wari empire dominated the Peruvian Andes’ central highland region and held territory that extended to the South Pacific coast. Approximately 800 years before the Incans, the Wari founded the capital Huari and from there mounted expeditions that captured a wide swathe of territory. Their methods of conquest varied: at times they used intimidation and force, as when decapitating captives from communities they overran and creating mummified trophy heads.

This violence appears to have been limited and ritualized: a more lasting way of expanding territory involved constructing irrigation canals in areas prone to drought and bringing agriculture to formerly barren regions. Across several hundred years, they were able to control and manage an area roughly the size of contemporary Peru.

The abrupt collapse of the Wari empire led to a 400 year dark age that extended until the Inca society emerged and created an even vaster empire, extending across the entire spine of South America. The distance of this new empire was similar to that between Tehran and London.

Tying the disparate geographies and people who inhabited the ancient Andes together is no mean feat. As reported in National Geographic, researchers at the Field Museum in Chicago gained insight into provincial banquets from excavations at Cerro Baul, a diplomatic outpost situated around two to three weeks journey (on foot) southeast from Huari. The site has an ancient brewery that was estimated to have the capacity for producing as many as 500 gallons of chicha (a beer-like alcoholic beverage). Considering that chicha would go bad in around five days without refrigeration, it appears that large banquets and festivals were held that brought together hundreds of local tribe members. Drinking and brewing vessels were crafted on-site to resemble Wari gods, and the grog was made from corn and molle (pepper berry). The latter is drought resistant and would survive even when the corn crop failed. Interestingly, comparing various sites such as Huari and Cerro Baul indicates that the decline of the Wari empire may have occurred over a hundred year period, from 950 to 1050 AD, with some localities able to preserve traditions such as alcohol-laden festivals significantly longer.

The collapse of the culture appears to have been tied to extreme drought that caused such deprivation and violence that it left an imprint on the archaeological record. A Vanderbilt University bioarchaeologist found that around 20 percent of adult skulls in imperial Huari had evidence of nonlethal, healed skull fractures. However, during and after the society’s collapse, some 60 percent of adults and nearly 40 percent of children had nonlethal head injuries. (Skulls compared were radiocarbon dated from 897 to 1150 AD.)

During the latter part of this period, the Chanka people emerged from the Wari ashes. Examinations of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) composition of remains found in the Ayacucho Basin suggests that these people were direct descendants of the Wari, as the mtDNA is essentially unchanged. That said, the society was markedly different. The Chanka formed a subsistence-based society that did not produce written records, lacked commercial networks, and didn’t have many tools or finished goods.

Examining Chanka skulls from 1270 to 1390 AD, the Vanderbilt researcher found that head injury deaths, around 10 percent during the Wari period, increased to 40 percent among adults and 44 percent among children during this time. The cause was not brawls or feuds, but systematic, lethal violence and warfare, whether internally among clans or committed against those “perceived as outsiders.”

Danielle Kurin

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