In 1931, archaeologist Julio C. Tello decided to use his vacation time to make a grueling trip from the coast to the Ayacucho Valley in the highlands of central Peru (Tello1970: 519). He was going there in search of the source of what was then known as “Coast Tiahuanaco,” a beautiful polychrome ceramic style that depicted gods, angels, plants, and animals in bold lines (Figure 6.1). The style, found at site after site on the coast of Peru, was reminiscent of that found on pots documented forty years earlier at the great ceremonial center of Tiahuanaco in Bolivia (Stübel and Uhle 1892). Even though many people believed at the time that these ceramics were evidence of the spread of a vast Tiwanaku civilization, Tello and other archaeologists thought the style was distinct enough to have developed independently.

Tello was the most famous archaeologist in Peru at the time. His lifelong goal was to prove that Peruvian cultures developed independently from those in Central America. He was keen on showing the importance of the sierra and jungle in Peruvian prehistory and was one of the few archaeologists of the period who regularly took trips into the mountains (Tello 1970: 520). When he got to Ayacucho, Tello was directed to the site of Huari, a sprawling site with monumental architecture. The ceramics on the site closely matched the Coast Tiahuanaco style, and his excavations confirmed the association of the style with some of Huari's most impressive buildings.