Excavation is the heart of archaeology. In the minds of the general public, archaeology is synonymous with excavation. We belong to a discipline that is, perhaps uniquely, defined by its dominant method of evidence collection and generation of data.

We have no choice: we must excavate, first because whole continents are still barely known from an archaeological point of view, and second because thousands of archaeological sites disappear every day as a result of economic development. Rescue or preventive archaeology is thus an ethical duty. Nevertheless, there is a serious risk of a split between academic archaeology, with its wealth of thinking but poverty of funding, and commercial archaeology, where the situation is the opposite and the goal is, above all, financial profit. So the question is not just to know why one excavates, but also how.

The impulse to keep excavating, set against widespread failures to publish in a timely manner, has created a crisis of confidence for archaeology. This is especially so in Europe and North America, where contract archaeology has witnessed dramatic growth in recent decades, but it is not universally the case. Far from being the defining practice of the discipline, excavation is not the only technique for generating data relevant to archaeological problems and, ideally, should be deployed as one element in multi-stage, multi-scalar fieldwork strategies. In any given situation in different parts of the world, many locally specific factors affect the role and relative importance of excavation. Examples are given from the author's recent fieldwork in Greece, southern Armenia and the eastern Caribbean.

The present study adopts a reflexive, critical stance in examining the premises underlying the conference session and, by extension, those underlying archaeology as a discipline. The role played by excavation in archaeology both today and historically underlines a wide variety of and changing perceptions about the goals and even the definition of what ‘archaeology’ is, while bringing our effectiveness at achieving those goals into question.

In trying to understand why archaeology is so strongly associated with the method of excavation, this paper examines different relationships between excavation, archaeology, archaeologists and modern society.

This paper investigates the rationale for excavation against the background of a new trend in archaeology: the renewed interest in the values of experience and empiricism in both archaeological practice and interpretation. It is argued that we should seriously reconsider the principles of archaeological heritage management as it has developed from the 1970s onwards. Reasons for excavating are discussed by referring to three examples: (1) the reconstruction of cultural evolution in the time period roughly between 40,000 and 30,000 B.P., when anatomically modern humans entered Europe but Neanderthals were still there; (2) recent excavations in 20th-century terrorscapes; and (3) public activities, like geocaching, that evoke a kind of ‘archaeological experience’. It is concluded that the time is ripe for a broad empirical and experiential attitude, based on new intellectual orientations like the new empiricism, to return to the archaeological agenda. Excavation may fulfil a vital role in this project.

The subject of the round table is a sensitive one, depending on the interest one represents. Based on my own work experience in South African heritage management in both national and provincial heritage bodies, I tackle this subject from the heritage authority's point of view. I will argue that archaeological sites should be left in situ or excavated only partially. When excavation is necessary, stringent procedures are to be put in place.

In answering the question ‘why excavate?’, much of the discussion in this stimulating session was pitched at the level of managerial considerations (in commercial archaeology) or the pros and cons of excavation for the discipline as a whole (in academic archaeology), with some attention paid to issues of publication. While acknowledging the great importance of that debate, and the many interesting points put forward, I would like to suggest that excavation also has significance for archaeologists on a much deeper, existential, level.

The issue is not ‘why excavate?’, nor is it whether or not to excavate sites. Nor is it the numerous ancillary considerations mentioned at the round table and in the papers – too many sites, too few resources, too large a backlog of unpublished sites, or saving sites for future techniques. All – excavators, archaeologists, curators and cultural heritage managers – would agree. If there is a unique world-class site that will be destroyed in a few weeks, it should be excavated. One needs to excavate to preserve the heritage, information, artefacts and context.

In western Europe, cultural resource management agencies have enforced, through treaties and legislation, the principle that archaeological sites endangered by development are protected. Excavation has played – and still plays – a major role in this: thousands of archaeological sites that are threatened by destruction have been ‘rescued’ through excavations. While treaties (e.g. Malta 1992, 4.2) and legislations (e.g. Planning Policy Statement 5, A.13; Wet op de archeologische monumentenzorg, 2007) stipulate that rescue excavation stands equal to protection, they also acknowledge that there are better ways – like in situ preservation – to protect our heritage.

Providing a younger woman's perspective, and born out of the 2006 Cambridge Personal Histories event on 1960s archaeology, this paper struggles to reconcile the panel's characterization of a ‘democratization’ of the field with an apparent absence of women, despite their relative visibility in 1920s–1940s archaeology. Focusing on Cambridge, as the birthplace of processualism, the paper tackles the question ‘where were the women?’ in 1950s–1960s archaeology. A sociohistorical perspective considers the impact of traditional societal views regarding the social role of women; the active gendering of science education; the slow increase of university places for young women; and the ‘marriage bars’ of post-war Britain, crucially restricting women's access to the professions in the era of professionalization, leading to decades of positive discrimination in favour of men. Pointing to the science of male and female archaeologists in 1920s–1930s Cambridge, it challenges ideas of scientific archaeology as a peculiarly post-war (and male) endeavour. The paper concludes that processual archaeology did not seek to democratize the field for women archaeologists.

This paper sets out to re-member coins into archaeological discourse. It is argued that coins, as part of material culture, need to be examined within the theoretical framework of historical archaeology and material-culture studies. Through several case studies we demonstrate how coins, through their integration of text, image and existence as material objects, offer profound insights not only into matters of economy and the ‘big history’ of issuers and state organization but also into ‘small histories’, cultural values and the agency of humans and objects. In the formative period of archaeology in the 19th century the study of coins played an important role in the development of new methods and concepts. Today, numismatics is viewed as a field apart. The mutual benefits of our approach to the fields of archaeology and numismatics highlight the need for a new and constructive dialogue between the disciplines.

In 1998 this journal (Archaeological dialogues 5(2)) published an editorial titled ‘What is wrong with gender archaeology?’. Responding to this rhetorical question, the editor affirmed that indeed nothing was wrong with it; to the contrary, gender archaeology was as healthy as could be, ‘one of the most thriving fields within the discipline’ (Archaeological dialogues 1998, 88). Nonetheless, the writer then proceeded to describe a pervasive, ongoing issue with the article review process. Any submission that addressed gender would elicit warm praise from a reviewer chosen for familiarity with or expertise in gender studies. At the same time, the article would meet with harsh criticism from a second reviewer, selected for area, time period or topical specialization. The result was a continuing dilemma of how best to choose a third reviewer (a dilemma likely familiar to anyone who has submitted an article on any less-conventional topic to many disciplinary journals, not only in archaeology). This polarized reception of gender archaeology, and an unwillingness to engage in a dialogue around it, were persistent and deeply troubling. Comparing claims of novelty in gender archaeology with similar statements made decades earlier by New Archaeology, the editor suggested that processual archaeology gained support only after it had proven its worth in specific case studies, only ‘when substantial work demonstrated that this was indeed rather different and promising’ (Archaeological dialogues 1998, 89). Such an expectation would appear most sensible for any empirically engaged discipline.