According to this exchange model, local upper Colca communities procured a sufficient excess of obsidian from the Chivay source to supply material into the exchange system for regional circulation. Two principal material expectations were described for this mode: first, the Chivay source area would contain local artifact styles and relatively low variability in procurement; second, that assemblages from the local Upper Colca communities would have some fraction of large obsidian flakes and perhaps cores consistent with the large nodules found in the Maymeja area.
As mentioned, ceramics and architectural evidence are in short supply at the Chivay source itself. There is spatial consistency in the procurement of obsidian, as the quarry pit and the workshop appear to have been repeatedly occupied over the years, but evidence from the both stratified test units show that quarrying and production was episodic. The earliest and the latest (upper-most) levels of the workshop test unit showed intermediate reduction events and some advanced reduction that may have been the result of irregular local visits to the source area.
One could argue that the intensified and regular production observed in the middle levels of the quarry pit test unit and the workshop test unit were the result of locals mining their adjacent obsidian source to meet the demands of the non-local reciprocal exchange network. However, two pieces of evidence contradict this proposal. First, as was described in Section 7.6, if locals were quarrying and producing quantities of obsidian at Maymeja one would expect some fraction of the large nodules to be represented in assemblages from local communities either in Block 2 or Block 3. In fact, very few flakes, cortical or non-cortical, over 4 cm in length were found in Blocks 2 and 3, while over 10% of flakes from the Block 1 Maymeja workshop were in that category. Second, the spatial evidence of intensification that was observed in production in the quarry and workshop was not reflected in evidence of intensified or concentrated obsidian deposits in the Block 2 and 3 areas. In Block 2, concentrations of obsidian flakes were found associated with corrals, but these were consistently small flakes. The question is if locals were responsible for intensified production at the Maymeja quarry, then which locals were conducting this work and why did they not use any of the large nodules in their local economy? The evidence suggests that locals were not involved in intensified obsidian quarrying and production in the Maymeja, but this does not preclude local residents guiding foreign caravans to the source area, or low intensity local procurement activity for local consumption and down-the-line exchange. Indeed, the concentrated obsidian deposits at Taukamayo in Block 3, although consisting of Ob2 material and relatively small flakes, may have been the result of local communities articulating with non-local caravans near the site of modern-day Callalli.
On the regional scale, down-the-line exchange is probably implicated in larger distributions of obsidian, particularly during the Archaic Period prior to the advent of caravan based mobility. A combination of direct, personal procurement and down-the-line exchange may have been the source of obsidian at sites like Asana and Qillqatani during the preceramic. There is evidence to suggest that during the Late Archaic these down-the-line networks may have become more segmentary and isolated. It is during the Late Archaic that Asana no longer contained Chivay obsidian, and projectile point styles during the Late Archaic became increasingly localized. Subsequently, in a dramatic change, during the Terminal Archaic and Early Formative regional exchange became far-reaching, the series 5 projectile point style appears with relatively little variation throughout the central and south-central Andes, and the knowledge of food production and other technologies became widespread. The evidence presented here suggests that exchange patterns, including obsidian procurement through down-the-line and direct acquisition, were relatively reduced during the Late Archaic. During the ensuing Terminal Archaic, with the initiation of regional caravans, major changes include an expansion of regular exchange and temporal consistency in obsidian supply at places like Qillqatani maintained through long-distance relationships as is described by Model C.