Ayacucho

Ayacucho embodies the dynamics of secondary succession—slow recovery after catastrophic disturbance. The Wari Empire built its 70,000-person capital here around 750 AD, pioneering terraced agriculture and road networks that the Incas later incorporated into their own empire. The Wari's quinoa cultivation in the Ayacucho Valley dates back over 5,000 years. But when the Wari collapsed around 1100 AD, the Chanka filled the ecological vacuum, only to be eventually absorbed by Inca expansion. Each succession left infrastructure and agricultural knowledge that persisted.

The region's 20th-century disturbance was more destructive. When San Cristóbal of Huamanga National University reopened in 1959 after 74 years of closure, philosophy professor Abimael Guzmán founded the Shining Path there. From 1980 to 1992, the resulting insurgency left 69,000 dead across Peru, with Ayacucho—already one of Peru's poorest regions—at the epicenter. Tens of thousands fled to Lima. The conflict didn't merely kill people; it destroyed the social and economic ecosystems that sustained communities, creating what ecologists call "successional debt"—damage that takes generations to repair.

Today's Ayacucho shows the uneven pace of recovery. The Valley of the Apurímac, Ene, and Mantaro Rivers (VRAEM) still hosts an estimated 450 MPCP militants—the remnant successor to the Shining Path—amid coca cultivation. But the city itself has rebuilt around artisanal traditions: textiles, ceramics, wood carvings, and tapestry weaving that predate all empires. Tourism has begun to return to the Wari ruins, though archaeological excavation paused during the conflict and many sites remain unstudied beneath protective cacti. Recovery from violence, like ecological succession, proceeds faster in some patches than others.