In this time period, new socio-economic patterns became well established in the south-central Andes while the distribution of Chivay obsidian was at its maximum both in geographic extent and in variability of site types. During this time period, societies were characterized by sedentism, demographic growth, increased specialization, and early evidence of social ranking(Aldenderfer 1989;Craig 2005;Stanish 2003: 99-109).

At sites like Jiskairumoko in the Titicaca Basin, architecture from the Terminal Archaic consisted of pithouses with internal storage, ground-stone, and interments with grave goods that included non-local items (like obsidian) that were presumably of value(Craig 2005). During the Early Formative around 1500 BCE this architectural pattern gives way to larger, rectangular, above-ground structures that lacked internal storage.

As reviewed by Burger et al. (2000: 288-296) using the Ica "Master sequence" chronology under the roughly contemporaneous "Initial Period" (though the Early Formative ends 300 calendar years earlier), the distributions of obsidian are notable in their extension both north and south from the Chivay source, and in their concentrations at early centers like Qaluyu. Obsidian from Chivay also persists on the Island of the Sun in the Early Formative(Stanish, et al. 2002).