Midwestern Archaeology Podcast · Lee Strange; Science Communicator

Episode 13: The Wari State: Noble Houses, Psychedelic Feasting, and Staff Deities with Dr. Justin Jennings

January 15, 2026·1 hr 10 min·5 clips

Lee begins by flagging a content warning before the interview gets underway. He then introduces Dr. Justin Jennings and situates his work in the wider world of Andean archaeology. Jennings has spent years studying the Wadi and the Inca. His research follows state formation, cultural exchange, ritual, and the social meaning of alcohol and drugs. The episode starts with the basic question of how empires rise and how people live inside them. Lee presses on feasting, beer, and hallucinogens. Jennings answers by contrasting the Inca with the Wadi. The Inca, he says, built enormous public gatherings around big plazas, state representatives, and heavy drinking. The Wadi did not seem to work that way. Their feasts happened in smaller patios. At times, the gathering may have involved only a dozen or two dozen people. Those spaces were tied to elite houses. The surrounding households did much of the preparation beforehand. They handled cooking and beer making. That labor matters because it shows that political life depended on many more people than the elite host alone. Jennings uses that contrast to show that Wadi authority was built differently from Inca spectacle. The episode also pauses on the idea of circulating fluids in Inca thought. Drinking, in that world, was not just a party activity but part of keeping the world functioning. From there, the discussion opens into a broader critique of tidy labels. Jennings argues that colonial and modern ideas about statehood can hide the real variety of ancient political life. He suggests that some terms turn into straitjackets if they are treated as universal. That point gives the interview a wider edge. It is not just about Wadi feasts. It is also about how archaeologists and listeners think about power, organization, and the possibilities available to ancient societies. The result is a substantial conversation that moves from fieldwork to theory without losing the thread. It ends by leaving room for ancient political forms that were more varied, and in some ways more surprising, than the categories we usually use to describe them.

As heard by us

A close look at Wari power, where feasting and ritual mattered as much as walls.

Dr. Justin Jennings presents Wari power as something built through houses, feasting, ritual, and the social force of alcohol and drugs, not just through the broad public stages more often linked with empires.

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Why you'd press play

You want Wari power explained through feasting, elite houses, and alcohol-fueled politics.

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