Peru as loose confederation of cities scattered along the coast of northern Peru and southern Ecuador, the Chimu flourished from about 1140 to 1450. Their capital was at Chan Chan outside of modern-day Trujillo. In the highlands, both the Tiahuanaco culture, near Lake Titicaca in both Peru and Bolivia, and the Wari culture, near the present-day city of Ayacucho, developed large urban settlements and wide-ranging state systems between 500 and 1000 AD. In the 15th century, the Incas emerged as a powerful state which, in the span of a century, formed the largest empire in pre-Columbian America with their capital in
Cannibalism in pre-Columbian America Cannibalism in pre-Columbian America There is universal agreement that some Mesoamerican people practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism, but there is no scholarly consensus as to its extent. At one extreme, anthropologist Marvin Harris, author of "Cannibals and Kings", has suggested that the flesh of the victims was a part of an aristocratic diet as a reward, since the Aztec diet was lacking in proteins. According to Harris, the Aztec economy would not support feeding slaves (the captured in war) and the columns of prisoners were "marching meat". Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano has proposed that Aztec cannibalism coincided with times