I had the opportunity to participate in an archaeological "dig" while in college. A farmer had uncovered some indian artifacts while plowing, so he had contacted "authorities". Apparently our professor was the local expert. Anyway, we excavated the field in 5'x5' squares. The first day was just shoveling dirt into sifters until we got down to the plow lines. We sifted out a pile of bone, flint and pottery pieces. when we got to the plow line, we then began the scraping, and logging the artifacts location, depth etc... We didn't find noahs ark, but we did get the outline of some sort of structure and a few more interesting artifacts. One in particular got our professor all in a tizzy. Apparently the artifact had a well known symbol but was until now never found in this particular area. IIRC, it was a symbol for the "birth of the iroquois confederacy". Anyway, he was all excited and I will never forget the experience.

Sorry for the thread-drift.