What role did wari play in the lima political economy?

Archaeological research has increasingly disputed the centralized character of the spread of Wari in the Andes. Field data continue to challenge style-based chronologies, showing that strong local developments, traditionally thought to belong to the Early Intermediate Period, are at least partially contemporaneous with the pan-Andean expansion of Wari traits. Recently, the coexistence of strong local societies with the pan-Andean distribution of Wari or Wari-like objects has been explained using models that focus on prestige exchange networks. According to these models, international prestige or prestige exchange networks explain the presence of Wari or Wari-emulated objects in each area. These explanations are at least partially replacing the traditional vision of Wari's sphere of influence in some regions. Whereas Wari influence in the past was viewed as a "mosaic" of imperial strategies that ranged from direct (high cost) to indirect (low cost) (Schreiber 1992), it is now increasingly viewed as the voluntary emulation of Wari features, which occurred as a result of the self-centered search for prestige by local elites. However, the utility of these explanations for understanding local sociopolitical contexts may be limited because of their focus on prestige accumulation as the central strategy used by the elites to uphold a privileged position in society. This chapter discusses the available data on sociopolitical transformation in the Lima culture from the end of the Early Intermediate Period to the beginning of the Middle Horizon. Available data support the idea that a multivalley polity was forming on the Peruvian Central Coast at this time. The process of increasing political centralization was initially centered on agricultural intensification and the expansion of agricultural land. With this intensification came a centralized management of production by elites in the lower Chillon and Rimac valleys, and the emergence of "rural" and decentralized elites in the Lurin Valley and the chaupi yunga.1 The inclusion of these rural elites into the Chillon- Rimac lower valley political formation was sustained by the management of local (Lima) symbols. Wari-related foreign materials played a role only at the higher levels of sociopolitical practices helping to build both the cohesion of several of these lower valley elites and separate these elites from a second level of more decentralized rural elites in the Lurin Valley and elsewhere. It is not until we understand these local transformations-during and after the Early Intermediate Period-that we can recognize what role Wari symbols played in the preexisting Lima political economy.