Archeology And The Cryosphere

[Onasander]

What techniques have been developed for archeological operations in the Cryosphere (the portion of the earth's surface where water exsists in a solid form).

 

I'm gearing towards doing archeology once I get out of the military, I volunteered for digs as a kid, and loved it. But, I couldn't help but notice that most operations took place during the summer.... a rather productive season with companies wanting to build during the prime of the year. Winter time hits, and it's became processing time, looking over soil samples and piecing together shards of pottery and so on.

Now, the best time to do this would be in the winter months in urbanized zones. However, given the "ruggedness" (as opposed to the daily life of a software programmer) of the average college archeologist, limitations in equipment and the warmth factor would keep them away from attempting this, as would the hardness of the soil.

 

I suspect countries like Russia and the Scandanavian/Baltic states have found a way around this, even if just from a few eccentric individuals whose techniques arn't mainstream. I know more elite archeologist can do it, take the iceman for example, he was in a glacier! I want to know if it's possible to take the lesson's learned from these few occasions and see if they could help the urban archeologist in more temperate climates? Also, if your ever just brainstorming one day and manage to come up with something, please drop it here, even if it's stupid, we might be able to further the line of thought into something great.