Traditionally, excavation as been the main source of archaeological information, and this type of intervention is normally related to archaeological field work. It has been selectivity used in the IVGA project, carrying out surveys in the Roman camps and at the water deposits linked to the hydrolic network belonging to the mines. 
Excavation, as with other methods that have been used, is not a purpose in itself, nor is it necessarily the most adequate approximation to the archaeological record. Its efficiency depends on the questions that are trying to be answered. One to the main principals of the methodological proposal of IVGA is the non-hierarchical organization of the sources of knowledge; the objective is to consider the different methods as complementary to one another, since they reveal information of the different historical processes are being studied form different points of view.
Opposite to surveys, teledetection or topography, archaeological excavation is destructive, irreparable and irreversible. Therefore, this type of intervention requires a previous evaluation regarding its interest and the limits it must have.
Within IVGA, different archaeological excavations have been carried out in reduced areas with very precise objectives: to document structures that have been identified and characterized during a superficial study of the record, and for obtaining organic and inorganic samples for archaeobilogical and geoarchaeological studied, as well as dating.
During the surveys, all the information has been organized into a strtrigraphic analysis. This allows all the information es correlated to the sequence of the stratigraphic units identified during excavation.