The stone tools that survive in typical sites are real evidence, but they represent only a small fraction of the technological and material life of these communities.

The canoes, the fishing gear, the houses, the storage boxes, the clothing, the sleeping mats, the ceremonial objects: all of these were made of wood, fiber, bark, gut, leather, or other organic materials.

In typical sites, they are as if they never existed.

At Ozette, they are present.

This is not simply a quantitative point about more objects.

It is a qualitative transformation in what archaeology can address.

The presence of wooden and fiber objects allows researchers to ask questions about technology, about aesthetic tradition, about household organization, about gender-specific craft production, about the full range of economic activities, that simply cannot be asked on the basis of stone tools and shell alone.