Four wrapped, flexed individuals found in 2022 beside a Wari temple at Huaca del Loro were buried outside the cemetery area archaeologists expected. That unusual location—and reports of both local and imperial materials—has prompted researchers to ask whether Wari influence in the Nasca region involved relationships beyond military conquest. The burials do not yet answer that question, and they do not prove the Nasca supported Wari.
Why the temple-side location matters
Northern Arizona University reports that the team encountered the four individuals during a 2022 field session. They were seated and flexed, with their knees drawn toward their chests and their hands near their faces. The burials were beside a Wari temple, rather than in the cemetery where researchers expected to find them, and had remained undisturbed for more than 1,000 years, according to the university.
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“What makes these individuals so interesting is that we found them buried by a Wari temple and not in the cemetery like the rest,” biological anthropologist Corina Kellner of Northern Arizona University said. “Wrong place” describes this contrast with the expected cemetery context; it does not mean the remains were literally misplaced or that their archaeological location is uncertain.
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Huaca del Loro is described in an Institute of Andean Studies conference abstract as a Wari colony with rectilinear compounds and a D-shaped structure. The abstract reports two ranges of dated contexts:
| Context | Reported date range | Associated evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Contexts without Wari imperial architecture or pottery | 500–740 CE | Loro and Late Nasca pottery |
| Contexts associated with Wari architecture | 690–1080 CE | Wari architecture |
These ranges overlap. They indicate that the site’s archaeological record should not be reduced to a simple, abrupt handover from Nasca to Wari; they do not, by themselves, establish how the four individuals fit into that timeline.
What the offerings may—and may not—tell us
A Gizmodo account of a conference presentation describes a plaster-encased burial and offerings that included local foods, local and imperial ceramics, and camelid sacrifices. The report relays researchers’ proposal that the burials may have marked connections between Wari and Nasca at an ideologically important place. These are preliminary interpretations reported from the presentation, not a settled explanation of the individuals’ identities, status, or purpose.
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A mixture of local and imperial objects can point researchers toward questions about exchange and political relationships, but it cannot on its own show that rule was peaceful, that people consented to it, or that the Nasca actively supported Wari authority. Kellner has also raised possible material interests—including Nasca ceramic expertise, textiles, cotton, and crops suited to lower elevations—as possibilities to investigate, not proven motives.
Conquest, cooperation, and what remains unresolved
Northern Arizona University says the Wari are thought to have conquered the Nasca. Kellner argues that colonization need not always have been violent: “We usually think of colonization as this rough and tumble violent thing, but that is not always the case.” The temple-side burials therefore make the character of Wari authority a sharper question, rather than overturning the existing historical account.
Kellner has suggested that Wari and Nasca may have had an earlier relationship and that Nasca communities might have supported the Wari Empire. That remains a tentative interpretation. The burials and the site evidence do not establish whether authority involved military force, negotiation, resistance, cultural exchange, or a combination that changed over time.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What tests could clarify the story
Researchers obtained X-rays, interpreted with a radiologist and doctor. With permission from Peru’s Ministry of Culture, the team later collected CT scans and DNA samples in collaboration with Peruvian archaeologists and the Museo Nacional de Ica. Northern Arizona University reported that those results were still awaited and that isotope analysis of human and animal samples was planned.
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Isotope work may help investigate diet, relationships, and migration. Those are lines of inquiry, not findings already established for these four individuals. The institutional report is an update, while the conference abstract provides site chronology and architectural context; neither establishes that the burials alone settle how Wari expansion took place.
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