After the decline of the Chavin cult around 200 BC, ceremonial centres, such as those at Pachacamac and Cahuachi, continued to be important in coastal areas. In the central highlands, however, ritual centres became increasingly urban and defensive sites began to appear, along with evidence of warfare.
Gradually a series of semi-autonomous realms within the Moche valley came together to form a cohesive administrative entity. Authority passed from the hands of the priesthood to warrior-priests, like those whose magnificent tombs were recently discovered at Sipan.
By AD 500 the Moche state had subjugated the entire north Andean coast and the valleys leading from it, an area stretching some 300 miles (500 km). At the same time, the new major states of Tiwanaku and Huari were emerging to their south, and after AD 600, Huari seems to have eclipsed the declining Moche state.
All these Andean states had a strong religious component to their authority, but in addition Moche and Huari ruled through military force. Common to them all was a stratified society in which construction of communal monuments, roads and sophisticated systems for water control and irrigation were undertaken under elite supervision by peasants paying tax in labour as well as in food and textiles. Control of trade and craft production was also probably in the hands of the elite.
