Originally published 2021-11-08.
Photo: A human skeleton excavated at Huaca Santa Rosa de Pucalá. Credit: Edgar Bracamonte Lévano.
At Huaca Santa Rosa de Pucalá, an archaeological site in the Lambayeque region of northern Peru, excavators reported in 2021 that they had uncovered 29 people buried about 1,000 years ago. Four of them, two children, a teenager and an adult, were interpreted as human offerings linked to the Wari culture. They were described as the first known Wari human offerings in that region, found inside walled enclosures shaped like the letter D, a typical feature of Wari religious buildings.
The discovery offers a rare look at how the Wari, one of the earliest expansionist states in the Andes, may have marked their arrival in territory once dominated by the Moche.
What archaeologists found at Pucalá
The excavation was directed by Edgar Bracamonte Lévano, a research archaeologist with the Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum. His team found three D-shaped enclosures surrounding the tombs. Inside, alongside the four individuals thought to have been offered, were the remains of animals that were probably sacrificed too: eight guinea pigs, plus several llamas and alpacas. Pots, bottles and a knife with a crescent-shaped blade were also recovered.
A fifth person, a man, had been given a secondary burial. He had first been buried elsewhere and later moved and reburied inside one of the D-shaped enclosures. The remaining burials belonged to people of the earlier Moche (or Mochica) culture, who had been interred in the ordinary way and showed no sign of having been sacrificed.
The published counts do not add up perfectly. Four offerings, one reburial and 25 Moche burials make 30, while reports give a total of 29, so one individual may have been counted differently. Small inconsistencies like this are common in early press coverage of excavations and are usually resolved when the full scientific report appears.
Bracamonte Lévano suggested that the offerings were probably "part of a possible ritual carried out at the time of starting the construction of these Wari-style religious spaces." In other words, the sacrifices may have been made to dedicate the new temples as they were built, a practice known from many ancient societies.
Who were the Wari?
The Wari culture flourished between roughly AD 500 and 1000 in the highlands and parts of the coast of what is now Peru. Its capital, also called Wari or Huari, lies about 11 kilometres north-east of the modern city of Ayacucho. At its height, the Wari controlled much of the south-central Andes and built provincial centres such as Pikillaqta near Cusco and Cerro Baúl in Moquegua, as well as sites in the north near Chiclayo.
Many historians describe the Wari as one of the first true empires of the Andes. Several of its achievements foreshadowed the far more famous Inca, who rose centuries later:
- Roads. Wari provincial sites sit along routes later used by the Inca highway system, suggesting the Wari built or used a similar network.
- Record-keeping. The Wari had no writing, but many scholars believe they were among the first to use khipu, knotted cords for recording information.
- Farming. They spread terraced agriculture into new valleys, shifting crops towards maize as well as potatoes and other tubers.
- Textiles and art. Wari weavings and pottery are highly standardised, often with abstract versions of figures such as the "Staff God", which suggests the state controlled elite craft production.
- Architecture. Wari buildings were typically windowless stone enclosures plastered in white, and small D-shaped temples about 10 metres across are one of their signatures.
The Wari state began to decline around AD 800, a period linked to long-lasting drought, and its capital was largely abandoned by about 1000. Its regions later fell under other powers and, eventually, the Inca.
The Moche before them
The Moche lived on Peru's northern coast from roughly AD 100 to 800, in what are now the La Libertad and Lambayeque regions. Rather than one centralised kingdom, they seem to have formed a group of linked polities that shared a culture. They farmed the desert using large irrigation canals, built huge adobe pyramids such as the Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna, and produced some of the most realistic portrait pottery and finest metalwork of the ancient Americas.
The Lambayeque region is home to one of the most famous discoveries in South American archaeology: the tomb of the Lord of Sipán, found in 1987 and now displayed at the Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum, the same institution behind the Pucalá excavation. The Moche declined after a series of climate disasters, including floods and droughts possibly linked to extreme El Niño events, and the Wari later became dominant over much of their former territory.
Correcting a common claim: was this the first Wari sacrifice?
Some popular coverage of the find said these were the first known human sacrifices of the Wari civilisation. That goes too far. What was reported was that they were the first known Wari human offerings in this northern region. Archaeologists had already found evidence of Wari ritual violence elsewhere: at Conchopata, a Wari site near Ayacucho, human heads were left as offerings in a D-shaped temple. The Wari are also well known to have sacrificed animals, especially camelids and guinea pigs.
It is also worth being precise about the numbers. Of the 29 people reported at Pucalá, only four were interpreted as sacrifices. Most of the burials were ordinary Moche graves that predate the Wari presence.
Why ancient Andean societies practised human sacrifice
Ritual killing appears in many early societies, and the Andes are no exception. The Moche left vivid scenes of ritual combat in their art, and archaeologists have found remains of sacrificed warriors and adolescents at their temples. Centuries later, the Inca carried out capacocha ceremonies in which children were offered on high mountain peaks, and some of their frozen remains have survived to this day. In Mesoamerica, the Aztecs and Maya also made human offerings, although historians still debate the very large victim counts reported in some colonial-era sources.
Researchers usually point to several overlapping motives:
- Dedication. Offerings could consecrate a new temple, palace or monument, which fits the Pucalá interpretation.
- Appeasing the gods. Sacrifices were made to secure rain, fertility or good harvests, or to end droughts and disasters.
- Political power. Public rituals displayed the authority of rulers and priests, and in an expanding state like the Wari they may have marked control over newly absorbed lands.
Seen in that light, the Pucalá offerings may tell a political story as much as a religious one: a new power arriving in an old Moche landscape and stamping its own beliefs on it by building new temples.
What we still do not know
Much about the site remains open. Detailed analysis of the bones can reveal age, health, diet and sometimes where a person grew up, which could show whether the offered individuals were local or brought from elsewhere. Radiocarbon dates will help tie the burials more precisely to the Wari presence. Until a full scientific report is published, the interpretation of the four burials as sacrifices should be treated as the excavators' leading explanation rather than a final verdict.
Sources: ScienceAlert, republishing Live Science (Joanna Thompson, November 2021); Wari culture (Wikipedia); Moche culture (Wikipedia); Human sacrifice (Wikipedia). Photo credit: Edgar Bracamonte Lévano.
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