Relatively little is known about the Colca valley in time periods prior to the Late Intermediate period. The political context of the Colca during this time is intriguing and somewhat ambiguous because the Colca valley lay on the frontier between Wari and Tiwanaku. External cultural influences in the Colca valley proper during the Tiwanaku times appear to have been entirely from Wari, yet Chivay obsidian is not found in Wari sites except in sites with a Tiwanaku component in Moquegua. Given the predominance of Chivay obsidian at Tiwanaku one might expect to encounter diagnostic Tiwanaku material somewhere close to the Chivay source. A number of scholars have commented on the surprising lack of Tiwanaku material in the Colca area given the obsidian distributions in the Tiwanaku heartland (Brooks 1998: 311-313, 454-459;Brooks, et al. 1997;Burger, et al. 1998: 211-212;Burger, et al. 2000: 340-342;).

The geographically closest Tiwanaku sites to the Colca in the department of Arequipa are found on the south-west edge of the city of Arequipa (85 km due south), with the best evidence coming from the site of Sonqonata (Cardona Rosas 2002: 78-87). The Arequipa highlands are largely unstudied, and the closest known Tiwanaku site to the Chivay source on the altiplano appears to be 147 km to the east in the department of Puno at the site of Maravillas just north of Juliaca (Stanish 2003: 189). Tiwanaku sites in this region are generally associated with lakeside agriculture or are found at cross-roads along major travel corridors (C. Stanish March 2006, pers. comm.), and to date no Tiwanaku sites are known in the largely pastoral periphery of the northwestern Lake Titicaca Basin in the direction of the Chivay source. Tiwanaku pottery has been found in Cuzco at Batan 'Urqo (Glowacki 1996: 245) and a Tiwanaku snuff tablet was found at La Real in the lower Majes valley of coastal Arequipa (García Márquez and Bustamante Montoro 1990: 28), but these appear to have been examples of trade goods along the Tiwanaku-Wari frontier.

In the main Colca valley close to the Chivay source, Wari-related ceramics have been excavated from a site just 4 km downstream from the town of Chivay and approximately 10 km from the Chivay obsidian source. A trench excavation exposed red-slipped wares from a domestic context with Tiwanaku Horizon dates in archaeological work associated with the William Denevan's Río Colca Abandoned Terrace Project at the site of Chijra (Malpass 1987: 61;Malpass and De la Vera Cruz 1986: 209, 216;Malpass and De la Vera Cruz 1990: 44-46, 57). Radiocarbon dates associated with these red-slipped wares came from a hearth in a house terrace and produced dates of 1140 ±80 (WIS-1713; AD680-1030) and 1290±90 (QL-4015; AD600-900) (Malpass 1987: 61). This ceramic style has recently been investigated in detail by Wernke as part of his elaboration of the Colca valley ceramic sequence (Wernke 2003: 466-477). Other Wari-influenced sites in the Colca Valley include a large, recently located site in on the north side of the Colca river named Charasuta close to the town of Lari (Doutriaux 2004: 212-223) and the site of Achachiwa near Cabanaconde (de la Vera Cruz 1987;de la Vera Cruz 1988;Doutriaux 2004: 202-207). Curiously, Chivay obsidian is not known to have circulated in the Wari sphere at all despite the proximity of these sites to the Chivay source.

In the main Colca Valley, indications of Wari ideological and stylistic influence are the strongest evidence for external links during the Tiwanaku Horizon. In addition to Wari influences at Chijra and Charasuta, the site of Achachiwa provides intriguing evidence of exotic obsidian intruding into the Colca valley. Achachiwa is a large site adjacent to the modern town of Cabanaconde that has a large Middle Horizon component that appears to be Wari influenced, as well as components belonging to a the local LIP occupation and an Inka occupation (de la Vera Cruz 1987;de la Vera Cruz 1988;Doutriaux 2004: 202-207). Brooks reports that she collected seven obsidian flakes for analysis from Achachiwa that were visually distinct from obsidian she had encountered elsewhere in the Colca (Brooks 1998: 447). Of these seven flakes, none were of Chivay type obsidian although the site is only 46 km downstream of the source. Her analysis showed that six of the flakes were from the Alca source (96 linear km away) and one was from the Quispisisa source (300 km away), a strongly asymmetrical pattern that is non-the-less consistent with Middle Horizon obsidian distributions in southern Peru.