Conclusions

Quilcapampa was a Wari site, in the sense that people from the state’s heartland arrived in Sihuas. Yet, we argue that this does not mean that Quilcapampa was a state installation staffed by administrators who lorded over a conquered region. Instead, it seemed that the founding of the site is associated with a ninth-century disruption linked to the Wari political centralization. Quilcapampa’s founders appear to have moved initially to the Peru South Coast, before departing for Sihuas after a few decades with a group of followers whose lives were organized around independent nuclear families (unlike the extended families in the Wari heartland). The Wari occupants sought to establish a host-client relationship in the valley, based, in part, on their long-distance ties. Their efforts, however, fizzled out, and the site was abandoned in little more than a generation.