Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Wari culture existed from approximately 500 BCE until around 1000 CE. The state began to deteriorate due to centuries of drought around 800 AD, and the city of Wari was dramatically depopulated by 1000 AD.
Scholars believe the expansion of the Wari state was driven by religious conversion, the spread of agricultural knowledge, or military conquest. Evidence of violence is most visible at the city of Conchopata, suggesting military conquest played a role in their dominance over earlier Moche and later Chimu territories.
The Wari worshipped the Staff god as a chief deity and practiced animal sacrifice including complete skeletal remains of a young camelid and thirty-two guinea pigs found in Conchopata. Human sacrifice also occurred with human heads placed as offerings inside D-shaped temples alongside smashed chicha vessels.
Wari architecture consisted of rough fieldstones coated in white plaster forming large rectangular enclosures with no windows and just a few entries. A form of architecture distinctive to Wari was the use of small D-shaped structures measuring only 10 meters that served as temples.
Burials at El Castillo de Huarmey indicate significant material wealth for royal women who dominated northern coastal Peru for many decades. Excavations at Conchopata revealed systematic hierarchy through burial stratification showing servants middle-class people elites and perhaps low kings or governors occupying the city.