What are Archaeological Sites?
Archaeological sites are the physical remains of past human activity. Wherever people have lived and worked, the land and water may contain evidence of their lives. The prehistoric ancestors of Washington’s Indians lived here 12,000 years before the arrival of the first European colonists. They left behind the remains of camps, villages, quarries, and hunting and fishing sites, all scattered across Washington beneath the visible landscape. Traces of structures built since settlement such as the foundations of 19th-century gristmills, stone walls of deserted farmsteads, and abandoned cemeteries all contain valuable information about the lives of the people who lived before we did. These clues, tangible links to our past, are often invisible from the surface. Traces of earlier occupation may lie under parking lots, buildings, or plowed fields and are only discovered through archaeological survey. As such, archaeological sites scattered across the state represent a tangible link to our pa
