Regional relationships indicated by both stylistic criteria and obsidian distributions point to high mobility during the Early Archaic Period. Recent evidence of projectile point similarities from northern Chile suggest that mobility was high along the Pacific littoral, and between the sierra and puna during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene around 25° S latitude(Grosjean, et al. 2005;Nuñez, et al. 2002). During the Early Holocene, foraging groups resided around high altitude paleo-lakes on the altiplano of northern Chile between 20° S and 25° S latitude that persisted longer than did the paleo-lakes at the latitude of Lake Titicaca. These lakes subsequently dried up during the Middle Archaic Period and occupations declined until the end of the Late Archaic Period but this distributions point to the mobility and early high altitude occupation of the adjacent puna of Atacama.

On the whole, obsidian proveniencing and analysis has shed light on human activities during the Paleoindian period and Early Archaic at a regional scale. Chemical analysis techniques, non-destructive XRF analysis in particular, are becoming more pervasive because the methods are being refined and the equipment is becoming more portable. Further field research will provide a greater understanding of this time period, but evidence will also likely to emerge from existing collections as obsidian projectile points diagnostic to the Early Archaic are systematically provenienced.