It is an argument for the importance of organic preservation contexts wherever they exist, and a reminder of how much of the human past has been lost to decay.

The Storm That Did Not End the Story

Every element of the Ozette story that this article has traced converges on a single moment: the winter storm of 1969 to 1970 that began to expose the buried village.

That moment was not the beginning of the story, and it was not the end.

It was a pivot point: the moment when a history preserved in community memory and in buried mud became accessible to the methods of modern science and to the broader world’s attention.

The story began long before the storm, with the occupation of Cape Alava by Makah communities across generations and centuries that the archaeological record can document only partially.