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of ancient texts through epigraphy (most notably in Egypt).

Tim Murray

Ozette Village

The Ozette Village is a Northwest North American coastal shell midden site on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. It was occupied for at least 2,000 years until the early-twentieth century, and a portion of the site was preserved intact by a catastrophic mudslide in protohistoric times.

The coastal shell middens of the Olympic Peninsula were first excavated in the early-twentieth century. Radiocarbon dates place the sites within the last 3,000 years. Like many of the coastal sites, Ozette is a shell midden, located at the top of Cape Alava, the westernmost tip of the continuous United States. The village was a multiseason and winter-use food processing site. The primary food resource was whale.

Although the site, composed of several locations between the mainland and the nearby offshore islands, may have been occupied for 2,000 years, a portion was covered in a catastrophic mudslide around 1500 a.d. A mudslide capped the site with a six- to ten-foot layer of clay, rendering a unique opportunity to study the native village on the Olympic Peninsula Pacific coast. Many food-processing remains were recovered at Ozette. Ozette is unique in the preservation resulting from the mudslide. Not only did the clay mud cover occur before contact with Europeans, but it also created a water-soaked environment for the contents of the houses it covered. The wet condition preserved materials such as fiber and wood, which would normally deteriorate very rapidly.

Scientists have been fascinated with the Northwest Coast cultures because of their elaborate development of a mostly sea animal– based subsistence that included hunting whales, sea lions, seals, and sea otters. As a result of the mudslide, Ozette provides a complete material record of village daily and seasonal life. Over 85 percent of the artifacts from Ozette were made of perishable materials that have not survived at other sites such as wood, plant fiber, and structural components.

Ozette was first test-excavated in 1967 by Richard D. Daugherty. Ozette was one of the five Makah Indian tribe villages on the Peninsula, located between a low ridge and a narrow beach facing the Bodeltah Islands. The Makah call themselves “people of the seagulls and rocks.” The area is rich in bird, fish, and mammal life. The Islands protect the shore and waters for canoeing and are part of the village site. Ozette has mainly sea mammal remains, including sea lions, harbor seals, and sea otters. Whale remains are the most abundant of all; over 75 percent of recovered faunal remains are from a few species of whale. The rich variety of sea life brought whales near the shore, where they were hunted from canoes by the Makah. Other abundant food and material resources included ducks, geese, shorebirds, and shellfish.

In the winter of 1947, Daugherty surveyed Ozette as part of an archaeological survey of the entire Pacific coast of Washington. Ethnographic studies were conducted in 1948 and 1949. In 1955 Stallard and Denman conducted a small test excavation at Ozette. In the summers of 1966 and 1967 Daugherty, Roald Fryxell, and Carl Gustafson tested all areas of the site; the earliest radiocarbon dates they received were 2010 +/- 190 years ago. In 1967 Area B, a recent longhouse area, was excavated on the sea bank edge. Normally perishable materials such as fiber matting, cordage, basketry, wooden wedges, and boxes were found in the test excavations. In 1970, storms uncovered more perishable artifacts on the bank edge. At that time, the Makah Tribal Council asked Daughtery to return and salvage the materials. From that point on, excavations were continued year-round until 1981. After initial testing, a singular excavation project was conducted for over ten years, in cooperation with with the Makah Indian Nation.

The sheer volume of well-preserved fragile artifacts from the site is overwhelming. A special processing and exhibit center was constructed just for Ozette materials. The location required