An urgency compels us to engage how archaeology relates to contemporary situations and future dilemmas as citizens anxiously contemplate their futures. We see “crowd-sourced” efforts to define pressing questions. A welter of theoretical approaches promises new insight into our relationally configured worlds. We couple awareness of the situated character of knowledge with a commitment to its empirical grounding. In light of this contemporary frame, I explore principles of an “effective archaeology” that imagines its “impacts” beyond narrow “uses.” By attending to how we make facts, archives, and narratives; by placing Western knowledge in productive dialogue with knowledge grounded in other epistemologies; and by embracing a disciplinary responsibility to expand and enlarge imaginings of futures through evidentially robust and critically engaged practice, effective archaeologies hold promise to build toward more equitable futures. [archaeology, epistemology, ontology, knowledge production, collaboration]