The test excavations were conducted in 1m x 1m units excavated in either natural or arbitrary levels of less than 15cm thickness. As a total station was not available for test excavation work in 2003, the team relied on string and line-levels for depth measurements from the excavation unit subdatum adjacent to each unit. In 2004 the group of returned to Q02002u2 and u3 (obsidian quarry) and to the Block 2 Pausa area with a Topcon total station and mapped in the positions of the site datum, subdatums, and the backfilled test unit corners with greater precision. This 2004 mapping effort also permitted the production of relief maps of features at each site such as the quarry pit, mounds, and rock ovals.

Prior to excavating each test unit level, the top of each level surface was cleaned and a digital photograph was shot from near-nadir with a visible nail in each unit corner in the photo that could be used for later georeferencing following Nathan Craig's (1999) method. Features were designated on the top of each level, and artifact proveniencing for each unit included level and feature. Carbon samples were point located from the south-west corner of the unit (in compliance with the UTM coordinate system), as well as in centimeters below the unit subdatum. Two liter soil and starch samples were gathered from each level, and from features of sufficient size. All dirt was screened through 1/4" framed metal screens loaned by CIARQ, and then through 1/16" fine green window screen except where noted in the unit description (a few levels of largely sterile soil in A02-26u1 were not fine-screened). Upon completion of the testing, all test units were backfilled.