This presentation looks at the environmental setting, site stratigraphy and content, and age, of the known locations for Washington’s earliest settlers. The sites selected for this review are intended to show how the methods used for survey and excavation, study analysis, and study have changed over the past 70 years. These sites include, Lind Coulee, Marmes Rockshelter, Richey Clovis Site, and the Paglieri locality. There have been many surprises and unique finds along the way that significantly changed our discipline; especially, our thinking about scientific assumptions and conclusions about the past, and the emergency of new stakeholders regarding the future of our past.