The Wari (Spanish: Huari) were a Middle Horizon civilization that flourished in the south-central Andes and coastal area of modern-day Peru, from about 500 to 1000 AD.

Also well-known are the Wari ruins of Pikillaqta ("Flea Town"), a short distance south-east of Cuzco en route to Lake Titicaca.

The incursion caused a number of the valley's existing villages to be abandoned, with one partially destroyed to make room for a Wari administrative center known as Jincamocco.

Wari storage structures have been found in the area, seemingly "paired" with some of remaining villages' agricultural sites; these were likely used to store both staple crops.

Archaeological evidence shows significant levels of interpersonal violence, suggesting that warfare and raiding increased amongst rival groups upon the collapse of the Wari state structure.

[6] Archaeologists, however, still rely on homogeneous administrative architecture and evidence of significant social stratification to help better understand the complex sociopolitical hierarchy of Wari.

The discovery in early 2013 of an undisturbed royal tomb, El Castillo de Huarmey, offers new insight into the social and political influence of the Wari during this period.

During its expansion period, the Wari state established architecturally distinctive administrative centers in many of its provinces, but they often did not have formal planning as many other Andean cities did.

The compounds were usually large, rectangular enclosures with no windows, just a few entries, and the sites had no central place for people to gather for rituals or ceremonies.

Multiple instances of camelid remains found in the province of Cotocotuyoc point toward the usage of such animals as symbols of social capital, especially because they were uncommon in the area.

[11] Some camelid remains were found devoid of cut marks and stacked on top of human bones, leading researchers to think they were intentionally not fully eaten to display the feast's host's wealth,[11] in a process known as ritual wasteful consumption.

It is possible that these abstract designs served "a mysterious or esoteric code to keep out uninitiated foreign subjects" and that the geometric distortions made the wearer's chest appear larger to reflect their high rank.

The most common metal objects were qiru, bowls, jewelry, mummy bundle masks, mantle pins, and sheet figures who demonstrate how the tunics were worn.