The evidence from the workshop area is being interpreted here through the following sequence of events. During the earliest phases of obsidian procurement the archaeological surface data (Ch. 6) suggest that the Maymeja area of the Chivay obsidian source was visited irregularly in an embedded procurement strategy that brought mobile foragers into the Maymeja area. Evidence for the use of the Maymeja area itself during the Middle Archaic comes from projectile points, but procurement in the Maymeja area probably only occurred in a context that was embedded in subsistence activities by local or near local residents.

In the middle of the Terminal Archaic Period, at approximately 2800 BCE and a time of increased intensification on the pastoralist economy, the Maymeja workshop area became occupied more consistently and debitage began to accumulate on the edges of the bofedal in this area. Flaked stone artifacts from these lower levels (levels 6-7) provide evidence of relatively advanced reduction because the cores found in the lowest level of the workshop test unit contained a high count of rotations and the cores had little cortex remaining on the exterior despite the fact that the cores were fairly large. The artifacts found in these levels suggest that the source area had a sufficient abundance of large obsidian nodules, and that relatively large cores were discarded readily when they did not provide sufficiently large flakes to suit the knapper.

Subsequently, the assemblage at the workshop changed and with the increased quantities and regularity of flake and core morphology at the workshop it appears that the quarrying activities at q02-2, a quarry pit 600 meters to the east, occurred during this time. The evidence (levels 4-5) points to an intensified processing of obsidian in the form of tabular obsidian nodules of primarily Ob1 obsidian material. The dramatic increase in production coincides with a peak in frequencies of Chivay obsidian at sites throughout the Titicaca Basin consumption zone to the east and the south of the Chivay source. Evidence from the workshop suggests that the obsidian was processed and exported in the form of flake blanks and bifacially reduced tabular cores.

Regularity in reduction strategies in these levels can be inferred from the morphology of discarded items. While the abundance of production in levels 5 and 4 is evident from high rates of discard and strata thickness, there is relatively low variability in artifact class and form. Very low levels of advanced reduction were occurring, but a persistent minor quantity of retouched flakes and bifaces was found. On the whole, however, the assemblage is dominated by large but heavily rotated cores, and the discard of large flakes. It can be inferred that in other levels large cores and flakes would have been rejuvenated or some how recovered, but in these levels of regularized production, such items that did not conform to the production aims of the workers were simply discarded. A small proportion of flakes in these levels were "Kombewa flakes" (Table 7-16), a technique that results from the flake-as-core technique of using large flakes as cores, and removing the percussion bulb with a perpendicular thinning strike.

Sometime after 1400 BCE (level 3 and higher) this intensified production activity for regional export ended and reduction activities at the workshop returned to local provisioning. The morphology of cores and flakes at this point shifts dramatically and more advanced and variable reduction occurred at the workshop. It appears that the surplus from an earlier stage of intensified obsidian production was exploited in this later time as the cores and other available materials were much further reduced. On top of this sequence is a final phase of lower intensity production from the Late Formative and onward that resembles the earliest phase at the workshop both in density of lithic debitage and in technical class variability.

In sum, changes over time at the workshop suggest a sequence beginning with local exploitation of the source. This was followed by an intensified period of production that corresponds with increased distribution and consumption regionally. It appears that large flake blanks and mid-sized cores were being exported in these levels. Finally with the collapse of this production system for regional export it appears that locals were taking advantage of surplus material that remains in the system for local reduction and provisioning. The upper most levels at the workshop indicate that lower intensity use of the area and variable reduction strategies dominated the activities at the workshop.