Managing the site going forward requires understanding this hydrological system.

Areas of the buried deposit that remain intact are maintained in their anaerobic condition by the continued presence of groundwater.

Disturbance of the overlying materials that allows drying and oxygenation would rapidly destroy the preservation that has been maintained for centuries.

The protective measures applied to the site must account for this sensitivity.

The Whaling Ceremony and What Was Not Preserved

The material technology of the whale hunt, documented so richly by the Ozette assemblage, was embedded in a ceremonial and spiritual framework that the artifacts themselves cannot fully document.