Evidence from 2003 Upper Colca project excavation and survey work suggest that the large nodules excavated from the quarry pit in Maymeja were not being used by local consumers in Blocks 2 and 3. While cortical flakes larger than 4 cm were relatively common in Maymeja, the cortical flakes (> 20% dorsal cortex) in Block 2 never exceeded 4 cm in length, and in Block 3 rarely so, which implies that the starting nodule size is far smaller in these consumption areas. When all obsidian flakes are considered, including those with no cortex in case all early stage decortication was occurring in the Maymeja area, the above pattern is reinforced.

It appears that large nodules, perhaps in excess of 30cm on a side, were quarried and at least some of the nodules were processed in the immediate area of the quarry, yet only 15 km from this location none of the obsidian flakes measure over 4cm in size. It is conceivable that this is a case of extremely accelerated distance decay where, despite an abundance of small obsidian flakes in excavated or surface contexts, large flakes were never being discarded under any circumstances based on the evidence from 2003. However, excavated assemblages from Qillqatani 200km to the south-east disproves this idea of accelerated reduction. The evidence from Qillqatani in the Terminal Archaic and Early Formative (see Section 3.4.2 and Figure 3-7), show that precisely when there is a wealth of obsidian at the Chivay source workshop, some of the largest flakes of obsidian were being discarded at Qillqatani. Sourcing studies and visual characteristics of these artifacts indicate that assemblages from these levels at Qillqatani were entirely Chivay type obsidian (Table 3-5).

How was the obsidian quarried at Maymeja? The quarrying may have been conducted with local cobbles of rhyolite and andesite, in a manner akin to what is described by Burton (1984) at the Tuman metamorphic hornfels quarry in New Guinea, however no evidence of hammerstones or digging sticks were encountered as quarrying tools in the 2003 excavation unit at the quarry.

The men worked with simple tools. Hammerstones of up to 2 kg were made from waste rock at the quarry and were pounded against the weak planes of the rock face until these could be forced open and a part of the face brought down. The hammers were hand held. Fire was never used at the Tuman quarries, as it was elsewhere; it was an unsuitable technique for the conditions. Wooden stakes or wedges would have been the only other mechanical tools (Burton 1984: 241).

Digging sticks made of wood or bone may have been used at Chivay, but if the wood staves were abandoned on the surface they were likely to have been recovered and possibly burned by local pastoralists as this area short of fuel-wood. The lack of hammerstones at Chivay is puzzling. Rademaker et al. (2004) report finding digging sticks and hammerstones at quarry pits in the vicinity of the Alca source. Fire does not appear to have been used at the Chivay source quarry pit as has been reported at non-obsidian quarries (Holmes 1919;Purdy 1984) as neither carbon nor fire-affected obsidian (Lloyd, et al. 2002) were observed in test units.