Relatively little is known about the Middle Archaic in the south-central Andean highlands. Elsewhere in the south-central Andes, archaeologists have noted an absence of settlement during the mid-Holocene timeframe corresponding to the Middle and Late Archaic Periods. In the dry and salt puna areas of northern Chile, and along the south coast of Peru, a significant decline or absence of mid-Holocene sites has led investigators to refer to this period as the silencio arqueológico(Nuñez, et al. 2002;Núñez and Santoro 1988;Sandweiss 2003;Sandweiss, et al. 1998). This designation apparently does not apply to the Titicaca Basin or to the sierra areas of the Osmore drainage where no Middle Archaic occupation hiatus has been observed.

With gradual population increases and adaptation to the puna, social networks extending across the altiplano and connecting communities and their resources residing in lower elevations with puna dwellers, were probably beginning to take form. Exchange of resources, including obsidian, between neighboring groups may have been in the context of both maintaining access to resources and risk reduction. From a subsistence perspective, Spielmann (1986: 281) describes these as buffering, a means of alleviating period food shortages by physically accessing them directly in neighboring areas, and mutualism,where complementary foods that are procured or produced are exchanged on a regular basis. Another likely context for obsidian distribution during the Archaic Period is at periodic aggregations. Seasonal aggregations have been well-documented among foragers living in low population densities, where gatherings are the occasion for trade, consumption of surplus food, encountering mates, and the maintenance of social ties and ceremonial obligations (Birdsell 1970: 120;Steward 1938). If analogous gatherings occurred among early foragers in the south-central Andes it have would created an excellent context for the distribution of raw materials, particularly a highly visible material like obsidian that was irregularly available in the landscape.