Violence and rural lifeways at two peripheral Wari sites in the Majes Valley of southern Peru

Abstract

Military power was a key factor in the expansion of many ancient empires, but it was not uniformly applied through time and across space, even within one imperial domain (Barfield 2001; D'Altroy 2002; Earle 1997; Morrison 2001; Sinopoli 2001). Support for the link between imperial expansion and militarism can often be found in the presence of defensible architecture and skeletal trauma; however, even in regions under imperial influence, evidence for bodily trauma may stem from causes other than military conflict between conquerors and the conquered. Indeed, violence may be of different levels and kinds, not all of which is purely military in nature, and it may arise in complex ways from the strategies and unintended effects of both the expanding powerful center and the players on the periphery. © 2006 Springer.