As was mentioned in the discussion of the pre-pastoralist Archaic occupation of Block 1, nearly all sites of significant size were multicomponent sites, and the difficult in differentiating components by time period is severe. The strongly pastoralist occupation will be described here, as well as the intensification on obsidian procurement in the Maymeja area that appears to have occurred with the onset of pastoral lifeway in the Terminal Archaic. Some of these sites discussed here may, in fact, date to later pastoralist periods but if the site does not have ceramics diagnostic to later periods, then it was not possible to differentiate the later occupation from mere surface artifacts. Architectural remains, such as chulpas, also serve to differentiate some Early Agropastoral from Late Prehispanic (particularly LIP and LH) occupations.

The problems associated with differentiating the Early Agropastoralist component in the study area can be characterized as follows.

(1) Persistence of pastoral economy. Areas with rich pasture have been consistently occupied since the early pastoral period until modern times, and in many cases the pasture has been enlarged through landscape modification such as expanded irrigation to the margins of bofedales.

(2) Projectile points. The projectile point typology proved to be very useful during the earlier Archaic Foragers period, but the typology is largely non-diagnostic to time period from the Terminal Archaic onward (Series 5 types).

(3) Ceramics. Formative Period ceramics are poorly defined in the Arequipa highlands and this limits the ability of archaeologists to differentiate Formative wares from utilitarian wares from later periods. Furthermore, utilitarian wares may be encountered more frequently at remote pastoral bases.

(4) Architecture. The defining features of pastoral settlement in the region, estancias and corrals, are generally not diagnostic to time period. Architectural features specific to the Collagua during the LIP, such as square structures with round corners and tall narrow doorways did become established in the main Colca valley, but the pastoral structures encountered in the course of this research showed no evidence of this kind of architecture.