The layout of the village with its configuration of buildings, remnant floors, and walls confirmed the presence of an early New Mexican-style settlement.  The cemetery with residual wall and scattered grave markers also confirmed a long-term, permanent occupancy.  Other archeological evidence helped determine dates as well as daily activities of the settlers.

    Considerable surface trash such as broken china, lard buckets, blue and purple glass fragments, square nails  accumulated at the midden site and scattered across the hillside from the 1860's into the early 20th century.  By 1865 most of  the founding families had established their other plaza settlements up and down the Rio Grande.  Guadalupe Torres, and later the Librado Martinez family, continued to reside at the high plaza known as La Loma de San José.  Photos from the 1880's reveal New Mexican Territorial style homes replaced the original dwellings.  The casita and jacal structures became lambing and livestock sheds.

    Floor trash such as boots and shoes, soda glass fragments, broken toys, fruit pits, metal artifacts related to farming or mining, and a red clay trade token marked with a J (probably for trader José Jacques) attested to daily life.

    The abundance of pottery shards scattered across the hillside had given rise to local lore of the site being an Indian camp.  Initial examination by Dr. Herbert W. Dick, Adams State College, confirmed several types of  New Mexican trade ware.  Predominant were Kapo black with its shiny dark surface;  utilitarian Casita red on brown; Petaca micaceous from the Picurís pueblo (still valued as the best pottery ware for cooking beans); and Powhoge polychrome with red and black designs on white.  Most notable were a few shards of Cimmaron micaceous, a trade ware identified and assigned to the Apache plains tribes just a few months before the La Loma de San José excavation (1969).