A pattern that was noted in the distribution of knapping locations in the Maymeja area of the Chivay source is for nodules to have been transported small distances (less than one km) to promontories and overlooks for processing. While LIP and LH pottery are sometimes found near these scatters, the association with the Late Prehispanic time block is not secure because is likely that these high visibility overlooks were reused, and that the scatters belong to multicomponent sites.

Figure 8-1. View westward from obsidian production area A03-210 towards main Colca valley, settlements on north bank of Río Colca near Coporaque are visible. Ignimbrites and tuff outcrops in the lower Maymeja area are in the foreground in this photo.

On a local scale, this evidence probably reflects a pattern where herder would establish themselves on overlooks and knap obsidian while monitoring the herd. In several instances, however, extensive scatters were observed on large-scale promontories that over look the entire Quebrada de los Molinos (e.g., the sites A03-570 and A03-578) and beyond. One relatively large scatter, A03-209 "Maymeja 7", was found 700m west of the Maymeja workshop area, far from other resources. The principal attribute of this location was its commanding view of the main Colca valley including terrain well beyond the town of Yanque, as well as the approach to Maymeja via Quebrada de los Molinos.

Was obsidian projectile point manufacture associated with provisioning for warfare? If conflict were occurring in the Colca valley, one possible explanation for this pattern is that local groups who were familiar with the obsidian source were conducting initial reduction while simultaneously monitoring events in the main valley. Some features associated with conflict would have been visible from the obsidian source including communication such as smoke signals. Stanish (2003: 219-220) and Arkush (2005: 162-163) discuss ethnohistoric (Garcilaso 1960 [1609]: Bk. 6, Ch. 7) and twentieth-century evidence for the use of smoke signals in Late Prehispanic Titicaca Basin contexts. Other evidence of conflict visible from afar might include the movement of large number of people and animals, associated dust columns, and smoke from burning houses or fields. While advanced reduction stage artifacts, such bifacial thinning flakes and broken preforms, were not found in unusually high densities in these high visibility locations, medium stage reduction debris was evident.

Conversely, there also exists evidence that contradicts connections between obsidian and warfare in the Andes. Relatively few pieces of direct evidence link obsidian points with lethal injuries in human remains (Ravines 1967). Analysis of 144 individuals from coastal Chinchorro burials (circa 2500 BCE, Terminal Archaic) in what is now Arica, Chile on the Peruvian border, found that 1/3 of all adults showed trauma from interpersonal violence and that males were three times more likely than females to have skull trauma from percussive force such as clubs and sling stones. Most of the later LIP and LH evidence of conflict also involves percussion weapons like slings and maces, although writing in the sixteenth century, Cobo reports that bow and arrow were important in warfare (1990 [1653]: 216-217).

Despite the indeterminate evidence for obsidian use in warfare in the highlands, the link between reduction and high visibility in these locations is strong. The high visibility and environmental exposure of these positions along the west rim of Maymeja, as compared with Averagevisibility in Block 1, was calculated using the GIS Visibility index layer. The construction of the Visibility index GIS layer is described in Section 5.9.2 (Tripcevich 2002).

Table 8-1. Visibility index values of high visibility production locations.

Site A03-209 offers particularly sweeping views of the main Colca valley including Pampa Finaya and pukaras on the north side of the Río Colca, while A03-571 and A03-578 provide high visibility of the Quebrada de los Molinos approach to the obsidian source.