Warriorhood was a prominent theme in the imagery of the Peruvian North Coast during the first millennium CE, a time of the emergence of regional polities and the consolidation of social hierarchies. However, these images found in the archaeological record do not precisely match the trajectory of conflict reconstructed by archaeologists and bioanthropologists in the region. Based on the evaluation of recent publications about remains and artifacts of North Coast communities, this study presents a hypothesis regarding the emergence of warrior images in the artistic traditions of this region, the incorporation of a warrior ethos into elite identity, and the place of warriors in their cosmologies through time.
Hugo Ikehara (2026) studied this question.