As the midday sun beats down on a strip of sand and gravel, a young woman three feet below the ground uses a small shovel to dig through the dirt, brushing off each artifact she uncovers.

She passes buckets of sand and rock collected from the one meter square hole to her colleagues above, and they methodically scoop it onto one-eighth-inch wire mesh. Another young woman wearing a cowboy hat to shield the sun uses her body weight to shake the large sifter, and the dirt falls away to reveal even more relics from the ground.

Though the scene looks like it could be straight out of South Africa or the Sahara, this archeological excavation is currently taking place on Maury Island, on the shores of outer Quartermaster Harbor.

The dig, a collaborative effort of King County, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle, centers around what archeologists call a shell midden — or an ancient food scrap pile. They believe that near the shell midden, which was revealed when a piece of Manzanita Beach Road washed away in early 2009, once stood a Puyallup fort. The contents of the preserved shell midden will now give researches clues as to how the early Vashon residents lived, as well inform them about conditions in Puget Sound hundreds of years ago.

Tom Minichillo, a King County roads services archeologist who is overseeing the project, said that since the excavation began on Aug. 4, the team assigned to the project has mostly unearthed artifacts that are typical of coastal shell middens: shells, charcoal, fire-cracked rocks and a few animal bones. They have also found a complete stone tool and a few tool flakes.

“These were deposited by the people who cooked these shells and had these fires,” Minichillo said, picking up a few small pieces of blackened wood and crumbling them between his fingers.

Shell middens are usually associated with habitation sites, he added. The find furthers the 1930s claim by a Puyallup tribal member and Vashon native that a tribal fort was located at the site around 200 years ago.

The team, however, has been surprised by one aspect of the shell midden, Minichillo said. The group has found few fish bones at the site — unlike the situation at the Island’s last archeological dig in 1996, when large quantities of herring bones and some salmon bones were uncovered at a Burton Acres Park excavation.

That lack of bones could mean a number of things about the site’s history. It may have been the location of a seasonal camp that wasn’t used for fishing, or its inhabitants could have been preoccupied with something other than fishing. Or, he said, it could simply be that their discarded bones weren’t preserved as well as the shells were.

Before the project is completed this week, another one meter square hole will be dug, its location determined by the findings in the first hole. Minichillo said the team is limiting the size of the excavation in order to minimize damage to the site. In addition to the two larger holes, they have used augers to tunnel small holes up to 10 feet deep in various locations around the site.

By examining the contents of these auger holes, Manchillo said, they have determined that the shell midden is 200 feet long by 30 to 40 feet wide. Other auger holes dug at the base of the nearby bluff have revealed alternating layers of sand and clay, telling the archeologists about the geological history of the area.

“That’s all the bluff failures that have happened over time,” Minichillo said. “The bluff falls and the beach moves up. … The auger helps us put together the geology of the place, not just the archeology.”

Archeologists from the three organizations will likely share the results of the excavation late this winter, when they present their findings not only in published form but at various presentations in the greater Seattle area, including one at the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Museum.

However, Islanders have already gotten involved with the excavation. More than 100 visitors toured the site when it was opened to the public Aug. 7 and 8. Minichillo said the team allowed many of them to take part in history by doing some supervised digging and sifting of their own.

It’s rare for archeological sites to be open to the public in this way, Minichillo said. “One of the goals for the project is public education,” he said.

A handful of Islanders also took advantage the rare opportunity to spend full days volunteering at the project, working one-on-one with the archeologists to uncover and record the contents of the shell midden.

When Maury Island resident Andrine Olson heard that nearby residents had been invited to take part in the dig, she said she jumped on the opportunity and has since spent several days doing everything from filling out paperwork to digging up the artifacts.

“Its been the most fun I’ve had in ages,” she said, taking a break to sip a cold drink. She and a couple team members laughed when they realized that she was essentially doing the same jobs as the archeologists.

Olson is also glad for the opportunity to learn a little more about the Island’s history, saying she believes many similar sites have been destroyed by development on the Island. “It’s so important to know what life was like here as far back as you can,” she said.

Minichillo agreed with Olson. “These coastal sites are highly endangered,” he said, listing erosion, bulkheads and boat waves as culprits of their destruction.

At the same time, Minichillo said, human interference can sometimes have the opposite effect on archeological sites. “We blame construction for destroying sites, but the pavement here probably helped preserve the site,” he said.

Brandon Reynon, a Puyallup tribal member and archeologist who represents the tribe on the project, is pleased that the Maury excavation will further confirm the Puyallup’s historical presence on Vashon, in addition to preserving one more piece of the tribe’s history and culture.

“People don’t think of the Puyallup tribe as being on this side of the water. … This area falls within our traditional boundaries,” he said.

Artifacts kept from the excavation will be held in the tribe’s name at the Burke Museum. Reynon says the tribe hopes to one day have a museum of its own to house the artifacts.

“That’s in the works but it’s going to be in the future,” he said.