The forms of halibut hooks, harpoon shafts, storage boxes, and other wooden implements can be described in ethnographic sources and documented in ethnographic collections, but those sources describe the contact-period and later manifestations of these technologies.

The specific forms in use 500 years ago, before sustained contact, can now be compared directly to the later forms through the Ozette collection.

The interior organization of a Makah longhouse at a specific moment in time: this would be entirely inaccessible without Ozette.

Architectural reconstructions based on post patterns and refuse deposits can suggest the general structure of buildings, but the arrangement of household goods, storage, hearths, and family areas within a house can only be understood from a site where the interior evidence is preserved in spatial relationship.

The presence of specific artistic forms in the pre-contact period: this would be much less certain without Ozette.