Among public health researchers two ethical concerns have recently stimulated discussion: “overresearch” and “ethics dumping”. Over-research refers to a situation where the host community are not benefiting from research activity conducted by outsiders. Ethics dumping refers to doing research deemed unethical in a researcher’s home country in a foreign setting with laxer ethical rules. We briefly review the origins of these terms and explore their relevance for archaeology, with special consideration of Southeast Asia. To minimize over-research and ethics dumping in archaeology we propose some modest, specific activities that should be possible for all archaeologists to do to increase the benefit of their research to local communities, and to ensure their work is consistent with international ethical standards.