The expansion of the Inka Empire during the Late Horizon resulted in a restructuring of the long distance movement of goods. The ability of the Inka state to transport stone is vividly demonstrated by the transport of hundreds of andesite ashlars weighing up to 700 kg apiece the 1600 km distance from Cusco to Saraguro, Ecuador (Ogburn 2004;Ogburn 2004). The ability to move people and goods over long distances was an integral part of state apparatus; however, it is evident from obsidian distributions that not all goods were more widely distributed during the Late Horizon.

It appears that if the Inka had a particular demand for a substance it could be acquired from over great distances. The Late Horizon was referred to as the "tin horizon" by Lechtman (1976) due to the lengths that the Inka would go to procure tin for copper production. In the Mantaro Valley, tin was not present in Late Intermediate Period coppers but it was found in all seven copper implements from Late Horizon levels where it made up, on average, 5% of the metal composition (Earle 2001: 311;Owen 2001: Tables 11.1-11.3). This tin is thought to have come from mines in Bolivia or southern Peru, and this exchange was facilitated by the Inka state (Lechtman 1976). Thus tin was transported from southern Peru, perhaps from the vicinity of obsidian rich lands of Arequipa, but apparently little obsidian was transported along those same Inka transportation routes.

Ethnohistoric accounts indicate that during the Late Horizon the control of natural resources sometimes occurred through restricted access to raw material sources in the Andes. Access to tunnels leading to particularly rich gold deposits at Inka gold mining operations were restricted at the tunnel mouths (Burger and Glascock 2002: 364;Sancho de La Hoz 1968 [1534]: ch. XVIII: 332). The deposits of other natural resources, such as obsidian, are distributed across the geological landscape such that directly controlling access would have been difficult or impossible.

Burger et al.(2000: 343-347)report very little Chivay obsidian circulating in contexts that are definitely Late Horizon in date. Small quantities of obsidian were found in Cusco, and these turned out to be entirely of the Alca type except for one notable case of Chivay material at Machu Picchu. In one of the only cases of Chivay obsidian use in the department of Cusco since the Late Formative, several unmodified nodules of Chivay obsidian were identified from a collection of small obsidian pebbles excavated by Hiram Bingham in 1912 at the gateway to Machu Picchu. Burger et al. (2000) note the significance of the unmodified state of these small obsidian pebbles, as the small size of these nodules suggest that it was not the tool-making potential, but rather the natural glass itself that was "suitable in its apparently natural state as an offering or sacred object comparable to quartz crystals"(Burger, et al. 2000: 347;Rowe 1946: 297). This view is consistent with observations about the possible significance of the 'essence' of obsidian as natural glass in Andean cosmology that will be explored in more detailed below.