Wari and Tiwanaku: Early Imperial Repertoires in Andean South America

Imperialism in the Andes is rooted in the interactions among regional polities active on the coast and highlands of Peru and Bolivia in the early first millennium CE. These regional polities included the Moche, Recuay, and Cajamarca polities of the Peruvian north coast and highlands; the Nasca, Lima, and Huarpa polities of the central Peruvian coast and highlands; and the Pukara, Taraco, and other Late Formative (1–500 CE) groups of the Titicaca Basin. While each of these polities varied greatly in scale and organization, they were critical to the development of the political concepts of integrating cultural diversity into political organizational frameworks that characterized the Andes’ earliest empires. The interactions among and between these societies resulted in the cross fertilization of ideas and the emergence of two great cities in the south-central Andean highlands by 600 CE: the cities of Huari and Tiwanaku