This area is 3,150 metres (10,330 ft) above sea level and encompasses the quechua, suni, and puna life zones.

[3] In the periodization of pre-Columbian Peru, the Chavín is the main culture of the Early Horizon period in highland Peru, characterized by the intensification of the religious cult, the appearance of ceramics closely related to the ceremonial centers, the improvement of agricultural techniques and the development of metallurgy and textiles.

To avoid the temple's being flooded and destroyed during the rainy season, the Chavín people created a successful drainage system.

During the rainy season water rushes through the canals and creates a roaring sound that emulates a jaguar, a sacred animal.

[10] On the other hand, Alfredo Torero dates the Proto-Quechuan languages to around the beginning of the first millennium CE when the first Chavín people had a religion.

The lack of residential structures, occupational deposits, generalized weaponry, and evidence of storage further make the site's architecture more interesting, as it focuses mainly on the temples and what lies inside of them.

[13] The monumental center at Chavín de Huántar was built in at least 15 known phases, all of which incorporate the 39 known episodes of gallery construction.

During the Expansion Stage, construction integrated stepped platforms and created contiguous U-shaped form by connecting the buildings, which now surround open spaces.

[12] By the end of the growth process, buildings become plazas with a U-shaped arrangement and an east-west axis bisecting the enclosed space.

The Lanzón Gallery was created from an earlier freestanding structure that was then transformed into a stone-roofed internal space by constructing around it.

[12] The galleries are known to be windowless, dead ends, sharp turns and changes in floor height, all of which were designed to disorient people walking in them.

[11] Stone-faced platform mounds at the site were made using an orderly fill of rectangular quartzite blocks in leveled layers.

Platforms were built directly on top of fallen wall stones from earlier constructions, as there was little to no attempt to remove debris.

[8] Some other iconography found in Chavín art continues to give a glimpse as to what the culture was like, such as the general evidence of the use of psycho-active plants in ritual.

[21] The Chavín culture had a wide sphere of influence throughout surrounding civilizations, especially because of their location at a trade crossing point between the deserts and Amazon jungle.

Garagay, a site in the modern-day Lima region, has variations of the characteristic Chavín iconography, including a head with mucus coming from the nostrils.

Effective social control may have been exercised by religious pressure, and the ability to exclude dissidents from managed water resources.

The climate and terrain of the neighbouring areas outside the managed land were a daunting option for farmers wishing to flee the culture.

[27][28] "The greater degree of elaboration of persuasion evident in the rites, materials, and settings of the belief system, the more likely that not only were the leaders aware of being self-serving in their actions but also they were actually conscious of the trajectory change.

This can be seen generally in the architecture at Chavín de Huántar, which bring together many aspects of outside cultures to create a unique new, yet traditional appearance.

The limited access, both physically and symbolically, of the stone-walled galleries, supports the existence of a shaman elite at Chavín de Huántar.

[14] The site was considered to be sensory, meaning that the architectural structure and design elicited a certain feeling through the senses, through sight and touch.

[30] This was done so through the details and formatting of each building, which in essence created the effect that those participating in the ritual were experiencing their religious phenomena.

[30] The Chavín buildings and spaces used for ritual were constructed to elicit an experience, and encompassed many of the overall architectural facets described previously.

As was recently discovered in 2018 by a team of archaeologists led by John Rick,[32] through the use of all-terrain robots, these galleries were the final resting place for, presumably, the temple's builders.

But other evidence shows that central areas reflected the lack of hierarchy in ritual practice, and that the society utilised the open spaces to better demonstrate a more inclusive religious experience.

Important aspects of Chavín ritual activity and practice have been discovered to be processions, offerings of different materials (exotic and valuable), and the use of water.

In addition to animals, art reflected plant life, including images of the cacti used as a psychedelic drug.

The Chavín were also interested in binaries and manipulating them, such as showing men and women, the sun and moon, and the sky and water in the same image.

Leaders demonstrated skills in understanding the supernatural world with the ability to manipulate it, thus making them stand out to be a religious figure.