Huaca Prieta is the earliest part of the complex but the biggest constructions on the site belong to the Moche culture.

Although the architecture, the iconography and the practice of sacrifice relate the Brujo Complex to a ceremonial, ritual and funerary site, the constructions are considered as the result of labor the “caciques” controlled.

The abandonment of the Huacas at the end of the Early Intermediate Period could have been linked to the political instability and upheavals of the Southern sphere of the Moche.

Some archaeologists also point out the extreme climatic events at the end of the Intermediate Period that could have led to the decline of the culture.

The Lambayeque Culture arose in the Chicama Valley around 900 A.D. before being successively incorporated in the Chimu and the Inca expansive empires.