They are spoken by several native ethnic groups in the region surrounding Lake Titicaca (Peru and Bolivia) and in the north of Chile.
Its decline began before the Spanish conquest as Aymaran speaking peoples divided the population of Puquina into several small groups.
In this regard, Adelaar and van de Kerke (2009: 126) have pointed out that if in fact the Puquina languages are, genetically, related to the Arawakan languages, its separation from this family must have occurred at a relatively early date; the authors further suggest that in such a case the location of the Puquina speakers should be taken into account in the debate over the geographic origin of the Arawakan family.
According to this author, the proto-Macro-Arawakan language would have been spoken in the Middle Ucayali River Basin during the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE and its speakers would have produced the Tutishcainyo pottery found in this region.
[8] Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Aymaran, Cahuapanan, Quechuan, Panoan, Tananan and Uru-Chipaya language families due to contact.