After meeting Thor at Hof this morning, who gave us permission to dig at specified areas, we opened a trench to investigate an anomoly in the resistivity readings. Rather thick sod covers the area, so I had to jump up and come down on the shovel blade in order to get through it. Doing that for a five-meter trench took a little while, then we pulled the sod off and started taking off 20 cm layers of dirt.

We ended up taking out about 65 cm of material for the whole trench, and in the end believe that we cut through a midden - a garbage area - that burned in situ. The midden may have contained peat that had a hire iron content, which, when burned hot enough, changed the characteristics of the soil enough to cause the anomoly. The various tephra layers appear in the profiles of the trench, and Steve and I (the people doing the digging), have to learn how to detect them better by sight, sound (of the trowel going through them), and taste. The layer from 1300 is black and smooth on the tongue. But it tastes like dirt.

Late in the day we opened another trench, slightly higher toward the mound that appears to be a Viking longhouse. This trench matches the first in size, but the removal of sod revealed quite a few rocks, so we decided to take it more slowly in case they formed a wall or other structure. We kept uncovering rocks, though, and no pattern has appeared, so we will go faster with them tomorrow. We also have to profile the trench sides where the burn area appears.

We certainly have the warmest job. Many of the teams either walk up and down fields all day, or plant electrodes in the ground and wait for a machine to send current through them multiple times to retrieve data. We, on the other hand, get to use shovel and trowel to dig trenches, and thereby stay working and warm. We have made it a practice to pile the spoil heap to the windward of the trenches, so that once we stop digging and get down in the trench to draw it, we have none of the chilly wind buffeting us. That will change, though, as we find structures that require us to trench into the wind instead of perpendicular to it.

The ag college at Holar provides our nightly dinner, which consists of a self-serve bar that has the usual bread and butter, an attempt at a salad, a consistentely overbuttered and oversalted celery soup, one or two encores which vary in quality, potatoes, and a basket of sad fruits. Sometimes desserts appear, but other individuals and parties eat at the bar too, and sometimes they get to the desserts first. The beverage bar consists of orange juice, milk, coffee, and tea. Overall the food is adequate, and plentiful, so suffices.