The fishing technology documented at Ozette shows a community that was comprehensively adapted to exploiting every productive layer of the marine environment.

This was not a simple hunter-gatherer economy in the sense of random opportunistic foraging.

It was an organized, technically sophisticated economy with specialized equipment for different resources and with the knowledge to use that equipment effectively.

The Evidence of Household Life

Beyond the whaling and fishing technology, the Ozette assemblage documented the interior of household life in ways that no other Northwest Coast site had or could.

Carved and painted decorative objects were found in what appeared to be household contexts, suggesting that decorated objects were not exclusively restricted to ceremonial or public display but were present in the daily domestic environment.