The scientific documentation and conservation work that Washington State University contributed were services provided in the context of a project whose beneficiary and owner was the Makah community.

This arrangement reflected both the tribe’s clear and consistent insistence on their ownership rights and the broader shift in the ethics of archaeological practice that was underway in the early 1970s.

The establishment of what became the Makah Cultural and Research Center was a direct outgrowth of the Ozette project.

The community needed facilities appropriate for a collection of this size, this fragility, and this cultural significance.

Planning for the museum began in the early years of the excavation, with the understanding that the facility would need to handle not just the conventional needs of artifact storage and display but the specific requirements of the Ozette materials.