The production and use of Loro ceramics in the Middle Horizon (c. 750-1000 CE) persisted during a period of cultural conflict as the highland Wari empire annexed the south coastal region of Peru. The Loro peoples, primarily residing in the Las Trancas river valley, developed a discrete and little known ceramic style with abstracted iconography and distinctive formal features that reflects their position within the political and social landscape. As the Wari controlled the economics, politics, and religious landscape of the remainder of the south coastal Nazca region, the Loro polity developed tight ethnic bonds and maintained autonomy for the duration of the Wari empire's presence. In this dissertation, I examine the physical and visual elements of Loro ceramics, situating these objects within the extant archaeological data, and proposing a definition of the style. I ultimately demonstrate that, through their ceramic forms, technique, and imagery, the Loro established a resolute group identity in a striking political response to the intrusive Wari empire.

That the Loro rejected the hegemony of the Wari is discernable through settlement patterns, bioarchaeology, and the visual language of their ceramic iconography. Notable for its starkly abstracted imagery, disavowal of symmetry, and loose brushstroke in the painting technique, Loro fineware intentionally opposed the naturalistic, calculated, and precise aesthetic of Wari material culture. In particular, the Loro embodied their local identity on face-neck jars, one-handled vessels consisting of a modeled human head atop a globular body. With standardized facial features, a range of reductive motifs, and a tendency toward female representation, Loro face-neck jars contrast markedly with similar Wari vessels depicting individuals dressed in elite male costume and bearing symbols of Wari state religion, leading me to argue that the Loro deployed their face-neck jars to solidify social cohesion and to emphasize difference. This dissertation situates the form and style of this culture in its social, political, and geographical contexts, examining the Loro as a case study of a local group's material response to imperial presence.