Encyclopedia of the Incas

however, is yet understood about this religion. As with most agricultural
societies, religion was undoubtedly much concerned with insuring fertility, water
supply, and preventing natural disasters. The most prominent deity represented
in Huari art was the staff god derived from the Chavín staff god and shared with
Tiahuanaco.
Following the introduction of the new religion, the site of Huari soon emerged
as the center of an expansionist empire and it embarked on a series of conquests.
Although the motive for this expansion is unclear, environmental deterioration
may have caused the Huari to conquer their neighbors in an attempt to gain a
greater variety of ecological zones in order to insure against crop failure.
Whatever the cause, the Huari appear to have organized one of the first conquest
empires in the Andes, expanding rapidly to encompass most of what is today
highland and coastal Peru.
Like other early Peruvian societies, the Huari imperial economy was based on
agriculture and herding. A great variety of foodstuffs, probably stored in state-
sponsored storehouses, were produced in numerous ecological zones. In drier
environments the state built canals and irrigated fields. Terracing opened new
lands, which also increased production. In addition, long-distance exchange
supplied scarce luxury goods such as Spondylus shell from Ecuador and
feathers from the Amazon jungle. To what extent trading affected the economy
is unknown. It may have been an upper-class monopoly designed solely to
provide the ruling elite with luxury goods.
Huari imperial power lasted for more than four centuries, until sometime
between AD 1000 and 1100, when it rapidly disintegrated. The exact reasons are
unknown, but the Huari state seems to have suffered from severe over-
centralization. These problems were no doubt aggravated by highly variable and
unpredictable weather patterns that could severely affect agricultural
productivity and state wealth. Like the Tiahuanaco, the Huari were very
vulnerable to major climatic fluctuations. The capital at Huari continued to grow
throughout the life of the empire, eventually becoming the largest city ever to
appear in pre-Columbian South America. The rulers were thus faced with the
twin problems of administering the empire and trying to cope with managing a
gigantic urban center that no doubt consumed more and more of the agricultural
production. Whatever the cause, by AD 1100 all of the major Huari centers were
abandoned and were never reoccupied; the empire had collapsed.
In the culture of the Inca we can see many legacies of their Huari inheritance.
The famous Inca road system was founded, in part, on the Huari road network.