Jose Maria’s concentration is on Andean Archaeology. He has participated in excavations of the Inca settlement at Pumapunku temple in Tiwanaku; and survey of Inca sites in Lake Titicaca, as well as survey of Inca high altitude sanctuaries in Bolivia.

In 2008 Jose Maria started a program of archaeological surveys in the Copacabana Peninsula, located in the Titicaca Basin. The aim of this study is to determine the spatial characteristics and extension of the Inca settlements in the region and to determine the different ways in which the Incas transformed the landscape and imposed their ideology to the local population.