Results indicated that three families occupied the site for approximately 20 to 30 years. One of the people involved in the consumption of flesh defecated into a hearth. Researchers recovered human feces from the hearth and tested it for biochemical evidence of human tissue. One unusual finding at the excavation was that in the pithouses, almost all roofing material, tools and other valuables remained. When people abandon a home, they almost always take with them anything that can be used again unless they are somehow prevented from doing so.
Indications are that the victims had no time to leave peaceably or to flee in panic.
Soil Systems, Inc., a private archaeological consulting company for which Billman worked before moving to UNC-Chapel Hill, conducted the excavations. The Ute Mountain Ute tribe contracted with the company to excavate 60 archaeological sites before newly irrigated agricultural fields destroyed them. Results of the investigations indicated that people colonized and abandoned that part of Southwest Colorado several times between 700 and 1300. Farmers who periodically occupied the area likely were ancestors of such tribes as the Hopi and Zuni. The 5MT10010 site was part of a small community that attempted to colonize the areas between 1130 and 1150.