Calate is one of the spaces in the Atacama desert that has passed unnoticed in archaeological research, most likely because it appears to be a wasteland, devoid of basic resources and therefore of no apparent interest for humans. However, as we elaborate here, this view is very far removed from the actual archaeological potential afforded by the zone, which has revealed itself as a privileged place to study human mobility and pre-Hispanic social relations. We have chosen it as a case study following a research strategy that initially hypothesized Calate as a space of socially dense mobility and today stands out as a true archaeological laboratory for understanding the archaeology of internodal movement in the southern Andes.