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.