Abnormal amounts of rain during January of 2009 not only washed out a small piece of road on Maury Island but also revealed a window into life on Vashon hundreds of years ago.
Now, thanks to a grant from a King County historic preservation fund, the archeological site discovered beneath the road on outer Quartermaster Harbor will soon be excavated, preceded by a special event at the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Museum this Saturday.
Tom Minichillo, an archeologist with the King County Roads Services Division, said the site, which was carefully reburied last year and will be excavated during the first two weeks of August, is what archeologists refer to as a shell midden. They believe early inhabitants of the Island dumped food waste at the site, leaving behind a great deal of shells, bones and possibly even ancient tools made from stone or bone.
While somewhat common in the region, Minichillo said, shell middens are valuable to researchers and historians. “Shell midden sites like this are disappearing all around Puget Sound because of erosions,” he said.
But what archeologists unearth next month will not only tell a story about native Islanders’ diets and habits. The species and proportions of shellfish found at the site will also help scientists get a clearer picture of what Puget Sound was like hundreds of years ago.
“It will tell us about and size and health of the shellfish community before the settlers came and before there was industrial exploitation of shellfish. … And maybe it will tell us something about how the beach there was different than the one that is there now,” Minichillo said.
Upon the discovery of the Maury Island shell midden, further research led archeologists to believe the site is likely just one piece of a larger native settlement that was located on Maury. Court records revealed that in the 1930s a native of the Puyallup tribe who grew up on Vashon testified in a tribal claims court that a Puyallup fort once sat at that same location. Experts believe the term “fort” in this case could refer to a fort, longhouse or village, and the claim lines up with what researchers already believed about the age of the shell midden.
“We know the one shell we radiocarbon-dated came back as very young, less than 200 years old. … We’re operating under the probability that that’s what we’re looking at, but with archeology we never know,” Minichillo said.
The August excavation is a collaborative effort of King County, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians and the University of Washington’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.
Jacob Deppen, an archeological education specialist at the Burke Museum, said the dig will give the museum the unique opportunity to reach out to the Vashon community during this Saturday’s Archeology Day at the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Museum, which will kick off the project.
“It introduces the community to the whole project, talks about the excavation and introduces people to the history of the native people on the Island,” he said.
In addition to displaying historical artifacts unearthed at a 1996 excavation at Burton Acres Park, Burke archeologists will be available at the Archeology Day to examine any artifacts Islanders may have. “People can bring in things they’ve collected, and we’ll have experts on Pacific archaeology on hand to tell them what it is and what it was used for,” Deppen said.
Deppen hopes to see Islanders come forward with artifacts they have been holding onto, noting that sometimes people are hesitant to share items they have found for fear that they may find themselves in legal trouble or have the items taken away. In Washington, he emphasized, historical artifacts are the property of the owners of the land on which they were found, and no one from the Burke Museum will confiscate artifacts.
“We’re happy to talk to people about the archeology of the Island and maybe even learn about things people have found on the Island and places we don’t know about,” he said.
The following weekend, Islanders will again have the opportunity to get one-on-one with archeology when the excavation site on Maury Island — midway in the dig — will be open to visitors for two days.
Though the excavation itself will be relatively small — two one- meter squares — Minichillo says the opportunity to tour sites such as this doesn’t happen often.
“In many cases all this archeological research is done in secret; we don’t talk to anyone but the property owners that are right there,” he said. “Generally you’re trying to protect archeological sites from getting damaged by the public.”
Laurie Tucker, vice president of the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Association, is excited for the upcoming Archeology Day as well as the excavation on Maury, saying both are valuable opportunities to discover more about the Island’s history.
“There isn’t a lot known,” she said. “Anything we learn will help us teach people about the Native presence on the Island.”
Tucker is also eager to see what Islanders bring forward to share with Burke Museum archeologists.
“It will be really fun for everybody to see what people have found on their own property. … People from the museum are photographing the artifacts,” she said. “That’s nice because we don’t have a lot of artifacts. It will expand our digital collection.”
Vashon librarian and Island historian Rayna Holtz believes that Vashon’s Native history is something many Islanders are still in the dark about.
“Lots of people still don’t realize that there were people living here before European settlement, probably because Van Olinda’s history says there were just seasonal camps,” she said, referring to Oliver S. Van Olinda, the Island’s first official historian. “But there are a great many sources that validate the claim that there were people living here before and there were longhouses and village sites.”
Minichillo hopes August’s dig will help validate the 1930s claim of a Puyallup fort or village on Maury Island. However, he said, if he has learned anything as an archeologist, it’s that you never truly know until you dig. “We construct some questions and see what comes out of the ground,” said.
Participate
Archaeology Day will take place from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, July 31, at the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Museum.
Tours of the Maury Island site will be given by Burke Museum archeologists on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 6 and 7. Tour buses will leave from Dockton Park approximately every hour from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
