The circuit mobility model of Nuñez and Dillehay (Dillehay and Nuñez 1988;1995 [1979]) conceives of the development of regional interaction in the south-central Andes in terms of decentralized "circuits" traveled by regular camelid caravans. This articulation between far-flung communities is envisioned as beginning in "Late Archaic" (rather, during the "Terminal Archaic" using the terminology in this dissertation) and Formative times.

Herder-caravan societies moved in fixed spiral-like transhumance paths between two or more axis settlements either along a puna-to-puna vector, a puna-to-coastal vector, or a puna-to-selva vector… Continuity and stability was given to the circuit herder-caravan movement by settlements at both ends of its pathway. For this movement to have maintained equilibrium, its pathway must have been balanced by relatively homogeneous, fixed axis settlements which offered multiple resources and services from their particular ecological zone and by ferias (or fairs) where goods were exchanged (Dillehay and Nuñez 1988: 611).

This historical model is of importance here because it highlights the limitations of a core-periphery focus for addressing certain regionally distributed processes like the emergence of control over regional exchange routes during the Formative in the Lake Titicaca Basin (Nielsen 2000: 88-92;Yacobaccio, et al. 2002: 171-172). In models of Late Formative complexity in the Titicaca Basin presented by Browman (1981) and, to a lesser extent, Kolata (1993: 274), caravans and long distance trade play a prominent role. In Browman's formulation, the core areas of regional centers became increasingly powerful due to craft specialization guilds and other institutions that reached their apex at Tiwanaku, albeit many of these expectations for guilds have not been borne out in more recent research (Isbell 2004: 216;Rivera Casanovas 2003). Kolata holds it was the productivity of raised-field agriculture that formed the principal economic mechanism behind Tiwanaku's florescence, with caravan based articulation being a secondary component. Both scholars emphasize the dominant position of the core areas of regional centers, a position that on a regional scale was ultimately attained by the Tiwanaku state. In contrast to these models that emphasize centralization, the Nunez and Dillehay model holds that it is integration by way of caravan trade routes themselves, and that these routes developed into "leading circuits" when they served to connect important centers. Further, as traditions became established, the relationships between circuits and principal settlements along these routes provided temporal continuity and stability to a system that is otherwise fluid and mobile. Their model gives more autonomy and influence to this integrating, caravan-based element in society such that "the sedentary (or axis) settlements of the population were maintained (and often created) and controlled by the mobile sectors." (Dillehay and Nuñez 1988: 621).

This model also contains weaker points, such as an adaptationalist underpinning for the origins and incentives for participation in these caravan exchange networks, and the model ascribes the emerging dominance of Titicaca Basin centers as resulting from their environmental characteristics. The system is described as "harmonious and cohesive" (Dillehay and Nuñez 1988: 620) as caravans are used to efficiently spread patchy resources over a wider region. The adaptationalist interpretation of harmony is based on a lack of archaeological evidence for warfare in the Formative, with the Andean tradition of reciprocity serving as the cohesive force. Further, the system segregates discrete "highland" and "lowland" communities, while archaeological evidence supports a gradient with no clear demarcation.

A more current theoretical orientation for this model would focus on the motivations of traders, the influence of non-local goods in axis communities, and the status acquired by caravanners based on the importance of their role on a regional scale. The emergence of this distinctive, dispersed economic form that appears simulatenously with beginnings of social inequality during Terminal Archaic and Formative may shed light on the underpinnings of social inequalities that developed during the Formative. Further, a greater exploration of the strategic relationship between aggrandizers in Titicaca Basin regional centers and these long distance traders may provide evidence for how the first elites in early polities were able to coordinate labor and garner resources from the region. Despite the historical and adaptationalist focus, the Nuñez and Dillehay model brought a focus on the role decentralized networks in connected emerging settlements that grew to have regional influence. This emphasis on the mobile sector of society highlights the potential influence in both resources and political support that could come from second-tier communities dispersed across the large expanses of the altiplano in the political strategies of early elites in Titicaca Basin centers.