This paper establishes the parameters for an archaeological study of money, debt, and finance as interrelated aspects of human economies. We begin with economic anthropology’s roots in the works of Mauss, Malinowski, and Polanyi before proceeding to the individual topics of money, debt, and finance and the ways in which they overlap in theory and practice. Archaeological research into these topics is of particular value because it expands our view of the social and political dynamics of economies beyond production, distribution, and consumption. The insights of economic anthropology and other social sciences can push archaeologists to look beyond material instruments to the effects of money, finance, and debt in the material world. When archaeologists recognize money, finance, and debt as socially enacted and socially transformative (just as they do for production, exchange, and consumption), they are able to study the origins of these fundamental components of human economies as well as their long, contentious, and dynamic histories. This paper showcases the contributions of the other papers assembled as part of a virtual special issue and calls on all archaeologists to examine economies of the past in new ways.