05:51 PM PDT on Thursday, July 22, 2004

By GARY CHITTIM / KING 5 News

PORT ANGELES, Wash. – The Native American site blocking one of Washington State's largest transportation projects just keeps getting bigger and bigger. It has grown from a small discovery to an enormous archaeological find.

On the shores of Port Angeles, an ancient civilization is slowly returning to the surface.

"I'd say it's one of the more important sites in North America, especially in the Pacific Northwest," said Dennis Lewarch, principal investigator.

A team of archaeologists helps dozens of members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe chip away the centuries that cover a village dating back 1,700 years, possibly much further. Few sites this old are as vast and complete.

KING Archaeologists and members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe unearth centuries right next to an enormous DOT construction project.

It's all happening in the shadow of the same state transportation project that disturbed the site to begin with.

"We're really overwhelmed with bringing back our history, but it's sad because we're destroying the village itself," said Francis Charles, Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe chairwoman.

The village is a victim of a cultural collision that has outraged descendents of the ancient ones and cost the state millions in settlements and delays.

This site is desperately needed to make concrete for features for the nearby and crumbling Hood Canal Bridge. And yet somehow, these excavators into the past and future are working side by side.

"It's a great challenge to try to continue to move construction forward while still maintaining and cooperating with the tribe to preserve all this," said DOT project manager Ron Lewis.

The richness of the site is literally mind-boggling. There are archaeological pits all over producing thousands of artifacts.

It holds such deep religious value to the tribe that visitors and workers are urged to wear a recipe of ash and dirt under their eyes to protect them from the spirits who've become very active since being disturbed.

Tribal members hope they can calm the spirits by preserving their tools, their homes and their bones.

But it's with a heavy heart.

"It's something we're not going to be able to rebuild or reconstruct, because we're taking it apart piece by piece," said Charles.

It stands in the way of the needs of another civilization.

Transportation officials say a contractor hired at the onset of the project found no sign of a village and gave the go-ahead. That contractor is now left to explain how one of the largest and most intact Indian villages in North America could have been missed.

At least four ancient houses and countless artifacts have been unearthed.

Archaeologists are convinced it was once a sprawling village with an elaborate seafood processing system.