Terre pour leurs jardins (Earth for their gardens): What do Polynesians actually want from Polynesian archaeology?

Since the turn of the millennium, thousands of pages have been published ruminating on community archaeology. What was once promised as an area of critical self-reflection in the field, has sometimes led to broad assumptions about what ‘community’ wants from its archaeological heritage. For archaeologists who work with Indigenous communities, it is worth interrogating whether there is widespread community interest in archaeology at all. This paper presents an interaction with local people during fieldwork in French Polynesia, in which young men who were not otherwise engaged in the archaeological project became very interested in our work as a source of well-sieved organic soil for their gardens. It provides a reflection on the value of ‘backdirt’, also referred to as the ‘spoil heap’. I ask whether helping families grow fresh vegetables to feed their children constitutes enough of a positive outcome of archaeological research, even when it has nothing to do with understanding the past. I answer in the affirmative and suggest we expand the definition of community archaeology to include tangible benefits that reach far beyond our narrow academic field.