The excavation was backfilled after fieldwork was completed, and the surface shows little indication of the extraordinary findings that came out of it.

This is appropriate: the site is not a tourist attraction to be maintained in an open state, and backfilling protects the remaining buried deposits while respecting the cultural and ancestral significance of the location.

Visitors to Cape Alava today see the same basic landscape that existed before the excavation, with the addition of interpretive markers that explain the site’s significance.

The lack of visual drama at the site itself is consistent with the principle that the primary meaning of the site is not in its current appearance but in what its buried deposits contained and what the Makah Cultural and Research Center preserves.