The Wari Empire or Huari Empire was a political formation that emerged in around 600 CE in Peru's Ayacucho Basin and grew to cover much of coastal and highland Peru. The empire lasted for about 500 years, until 1100 CE. It existed during the same era as the Tiwanaku culture, and at one time, was thought to have been derived from it.

In 2008, archeologists found a pre-Columbian city, the Northern Wari ruins (also called Cerro Pátapo) near modern Chiclayo. The find was the first extensive settlement related to the Wari culture discovered that far north. Archaeological discoveries have continued over the past decade. In 2023, archaeologists discovered a 1200-year-old Wari ritual complex in Arequipa. While more discoveries are being made regarding the Wari Empire, archaeologists are able to draw more conclusions about the Wari Empire's culture.

The Wari Empire was a second-generation state of the Andean region; both it and Tiwanaku had been preceded by the first-generation Moche state. When expanding to engulf new polities, the Wari Empire practiced a policy of allowing the local leaders of the newly acquired territory to retain control of their area if they agreed to join the Wari Empire and obey the Wari.

The political relationship between the Wari and Tiwanaku has been compared by archaeologist Joyce Marcus to that of the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War - the two empires did not go to war with one another for fear of mutual destruction. The two empires met at Moquegua, where the Wari and Tiwanaku populations co-existed without conflicts.

According to Luis Lumbreras, the Wari "constituted a synthesis of the advances that the Andean culture had achieved up to the sixth century, both in the north and south. Multiple currents converged in a territory where receptivity was very great. This was so because of a lack of elite traditions strong enough to reject innovations; on the other hand, Wari welcomed innovations that favored the advance of their projects of conquest and expansion."

While the Wari likely had significant organizational and administrative power, it remains unclear what the origins of its political and artistic forms were. Emerging evidence suggests that rather than being the result of Tiwanaku traits diffusing north, the Wari and Tiwanaku ideological formations may be traceable to previous developments at Pukara, an Early Intermediate Period culture to the north of Lake Titicaca. The polity seems to have survived until ca. AD 1100, when it collapsed, likely as a result of both environmental change and internal socio-political stresses.

The expanding state likely had a fairly symbiotic relationship with local people. The colonizers would likely trade, intermarry, feast, partake in religious rituals, or just directly coerce local residents. There was also likely a wide variety of impacts from community to community, some were largely impacted by the state and others less so, depending on location and time. Contact with the larger empire could have been beneficial for smaller communities because they were able to establish trade and obtain exotic goods not previously available to them.

One of the commodities was beer, communal consumption of beer served as a potent instrument of Wari governance. Forging hierarchical ties within and between groups was often a prevalent theme in Wari feasting. At Quilcapampa, guests partaking in Wari-related feasts were served alcohol infused with vilca. The vilca-infused brew fostered collective, psychotropic experiences. The providers of the brew, Wari leaders, reinforced their elevated status within the social hierarchy. The presence of alcoholic beverages, evidenced by the abundance of maize and molle at Wari sites, indicates their widespread consumption during feasts.