The 11-year excavation was comprehensive but did not expose every area of potential preservation.

Adjacent areas, or deeper deposits in excavated areas, might contain additional preserved material.

The decision about whether and when to excavate further rests with the Makah Tribe, and the option to defer further excavation until analytical methods improve is a reasonable one.

The buried portions of the Ozette site are, in a sense, in storage: sealed by the same mud that created the preservation environment, maintained by the continued saturation that has kept them anaerobic, and potentially available for investigation at a future time when the community decides the conditions are right.

This is the appropriate ending for the excavation story: not a completed project but an ongoing stewardship, with the tribe in authority over the timing and terms of any further investigation of their own ancestral heritage.