Back in 2001, when this project revolved around survey, it was my role and responsibility to draw profiles of soil layers in trenches cut through the ground where analysis indicated buried structures might exist.

It's not clear what I'm going to be doing this year. I understand that there's full-scale excavation of a Viking longhouse going on and I hope to participate in that. This structure was found back in 2001. See an article in the CSUN Daily Sundial about that (front page, page three).

According to the medieval sagas – written long after the events they chronicle – this specific house belonged to Snorri Thorfinnson, the first white guy born in North America. This may never be possible to prove one way or the other, but it's plausible.

In any case, there's likely to be continued survey work with the project in addition to any excavation, so I may be helping with that as well. It's also possible I'll be put to use designing databases for artifact cataloging or otherwise working in a lab setting. A little bit of everything might also be expected.

The adventure starts tomorrow!