Understanding Middle Horizon Peru: Hermeneutic Spirals, Interpretative Traditions, and Wari Administrative Centers

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. During the Middle Horizon (A.D. 600-1000), the Wari state extended its influence over much of Peru. One popular view of the Wari expansion is that the state constructed a system of administrative centers that ruled through an idiom of general ized reciprocity and extracted, stored, and redistributed goods from local groups. This paper considers how this model of the Wari periphery was constructed over the last 100 years, and argues that interpretations that fit within this model have been given added weight in academic literature because they fit our expectations of what the past should be like. I suggest that there are significant problems in this understanding of the Wari periphery that need to be addressed, and offer an alter native model that better fits the available evidence. Durante el Horizonte Medio (600-1000 d.C.) el estado Wari extendi? su influencia sobre gran parte del Per?. Una visi?n po pular de la expansi?n Wari es que el Estado construy? un sistema de centros administrativos que gobernaba a trav?s del lenguaje, de la reciprocidad generalizada y extra?a, almacenaba y redistribu?a bienes de y hacia grupos locales. En el pre sente art?culo se analiza c?mo fue construido este modelo de periferia Wari en los ?ltimos 100 a?os, y se plantea que las inter pretaciones que se ajustan a tal modelo fueron destacadas en la literatura acad?mica dado que concuerdan con expectativas de lo que el pasado deber?a ser. Sugiero que esta conceptualizaci?n de la periferia Wari acarrea problemas sustantivos que deben ser afrontados, y ofrezco un modelo alternativo que se ajusta mejor a la evidencia disponible.During the Middle Horizon (A.D. 600-1000), an architectural and ceramic style known as Wari spread throughout much of Peru. For most Andean archaeologists, the reason behind the dissemination of these styles is the expansion of the influence of the Wari state.1 While scholars debate the degree of Wari political, social, and economic control over the periphery (Glowacki 1996a:26-56), one of the more widely held views is that the Wari state ruled much of Peru through a network of regional administrative cen ters that organized the extraction, storage, and redis tribution of local resources through an idiom of generalized reciprocity. This view of Wari, often implicitly used, guides recent interpretations of the Wari state (e.g., D'Altroy and Schreiber 2004; Schreiber 2001, 2005; Williams and Isla 2002), including my own (Jennings and Craig 2001), shapes comparative analyses of ancient states (e.g., Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997:43; Marcus 1998:76; Smith and Montiel 2001:249), and pervades gen eral archaeology texts (e.g., Bruhns -150). I suggest that this model of the Wari periphery, based...

Beyond exotic goods: Wari elites and regional interaction in the Andes during the Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000)

“…Isbell 1987; Schreiber 1987; Jennings & Craig 2001: 482; Williams 2017). Others have argued that there was less direct state control on the periphery, and that many of the Wari sites outside of the Ayacucho Valley were built and maintained by local elites who emulated Wari styles (Jennings 2006). However these prestige goods were obtained, we argue that the procurement of sumptuary or exotic objects and materials was vital to the Wari heartland.…”

Early imperialism in the Andes: Wari colonisation of Nasca

“…Despite years of research on Wari, debate continues concerning its political organisation, degree of power and relationship to other societies. The central disagreement concerns whether Wari was an empire (Lumbreras 1974; Isbell & McEwan 1991; Schreiber 1992; Williams & Isla 2002) or an interregional interaction sphere (Shady Solís 1988; Topic & Topic 2000; Jennings 2006; Owen 2010). We argue here that, while Wari greatly facilitated and increased interregional interaction and trade, it was an empire, and that its control of coastal areas has been underestimated.…”

Life in the late Intermediate Period at Armatambo, Peru

“…where the presence of the ruling elite's style is taken as evidence of direct administrative control (Jennings, 2006b).…”