Archaeological investigations were sponsored by the Bureau of Land Management in 1986 at a prehistoric archaeological site (35LNC62) at the tip of Yaquina Head, a prominent headland on the central Oregon coast. The results of these investigations indicate that this locality was occupied between 5000 and 2000 years ago, making this the second oldest archaeological site so far documented on the Oregon Coast. Two cultural components were identified at the prehistoric settlement on Yaquina Head.
The Yaquina I component is represented by cultural materials recovered from below a marine shell midden, and is estimated to date from approximately 5000 to 3200 BP. Initial evidence of the use of the headland by prehistoric peoples was sparse, and during Yaquina I times the site apparently functioned as an occasional summer encampment. Faunal remains indicate that animals from both marine and terrestrial habitats were hunted by the site's inhabitants during this period.
The Yaquina II component contains evidence of more intensive use of the headland, including exploitation of marine molluscs, and is estimated to date from 3200 to 2000 BP. During this period Yaquina Head was the setting of a village containing semisubterranean housepits that was occupied throughout the year. A wide range of subsistence and manufacturing activities took place at the site, and faunal remains indicate that a variety of resources was exploited, including animals from terrestrial habitats, as well as shoreline, nearshore, and offshore marine environments.
Yaquina II includes cultural materials from two strata: the marine shell midden, and a non-shell sandy deposit that both overlies the shell midden and borders it on three sides. These strata were observed to interfinger in the excavation units and in the exposed cliff face. This situation, together with the radiocarbon dates obtained from this site, indicates that deposition of both these strata took place at the same time. Evidence of the marine oriented adaptation of the site's prehistoric inhabitants was recovered from both the shell midden and the non- shell sandy deposit. This evidence is significant, as it challenges a current theory that archaeological sites along the coastal margin that lack shell deposits were occupied by peoples with a terrestrially oriented adaptation.
By 2000 years ago, the settlement on Yaquina Head had been abandoned, perhaps as a result of changing conditions at the headland caused by erosional forces. It is possible that occupation shifted at this time to two smaller shell middens (35LNC49 and 35LNC50) situated to the east in the lee of the headland. Analysis of cultural materials recovered during previous testing by Oregon State University indicates that these sites contain generally similar evidence of occupation, but that occupation of these shell middens occurred after the abandonment of the archaeological site at the tip of Yaquina Head.