Multiple pathways to applied archaeology, actionability and intervention: a response to Davies & Lunn-Rockliffe

It is exciting to read another debate piece in Antiquity critically examining the opportunities for what can be called applied archaeology of global challenges, defined as a branch of the discipline concerned with the application of knowledge about the past generated from archaeological research to address any of the broad array of first-rate wicked problems identified in Agenda 2030 (United Nations 2015) and similar charters and discourses (cf.Isendahl & Stump 2019a: 585).It makes sense to briefly compare Matthew Davies and Samuel Lunn-Rockliffe's argument to that of Michael E. Smith, made in another debate article in this journal a few years ago (Smith 2021), not only because both articles address the same broad issue but because their pitch and structure are similar.Both argue that (1) many archaeologists proclaim their discipline's relevance for addressing present challenges (observation), but that (2) this promise is largely unfulfilled (caveat), followed by (3) a prescribed solution (remedy).In short, Smith (2021) suggests that archaeologists need to engage collaboratively in transdisciplinary researchin the sense of "research for which individuals collaborate deeply and learn elements of one another's discipline" (Smith 2021: 1064)-to generate quantitative results that are informative to scholars in fields more directly involved in applied science.Davies and Lunn-Rockliffe champion a complementary route, arguing "for a more explicit model of community-embedded research design, where archaeological questions, research programmes, data and outputs are collaboratively produced with the view of questioning and refining existing policy discourse and driving meaningful future change" (Davies & Lunn-Rockliffe 2026: 213).The participatory vantage point evokes the phrase 'nothing about us without us' (nihil de nobis, sine nobis, in Latin) used in other academic and activist contexts to emphasise that groups affected by policies should be included in the decision-making process (e.g.Penn State Center Philadelphia 2024).I support both recommendations; they are well argued, demonstrably true and operational in their respective contexts-because, as Davies and Lunn-Rockliffe point out, there are multiple and contested pathways to addressing global challenges from the vantage points of archaeology (how could it be any different than pluralism?-noother discipline is expected to follow one single methodological route).For instance, the argument that open science principles for increased access to archaeological and cognate