Cultural knowledge, while disrupted by the policies of the period, was not entirely extinguished.

The period of the Ozette excavation, beginning in 1970, coincided with a broader political moment of Native American assertion.

The American Indian Movement, the fishing rights battles in the Pacific Northwest (the “fish wars”), and the emerging framework of self-determination policy all contributed to a context in which the Makah Tribe’s insistence on controlling the Ozette excavation and its collection was both principled and politically supported.

The specific structure of the Ozette project, with tribal ownership of the collection and tribal control of the interpretive program, reflected the emerging consensus that the old model of university or museum control of research on tribal lands was no longer acceptable.