UNDERSTANDING MIDDLE HORIZON PERU: HERMENEUTIC SPIRALS, INTERPRETATIVE TRADITIONS, AND WAR! ADMINISTRATIVE CENTERS.

During the Middle Horizon (A.D. 600-1000), the Wari state extended its influence over much of Peru. One popular view of the Wan expansion is that the state constructed a system of administrative centers that ruled through an idiom of generalized reciprocity and extracted, stored, and redistributed goods from local groups. This paper considers how this model of the Wan periphery was constructed over the last 100 years, and argues that interpretations that fit within this model have been given added weight in academic literature because they fit our expectations of what the past should be like. I suggest that there are significant problems in this understanding of the Wan periphery that need to be addressed, and offer an alter- native model that better fits the available evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]