THE ENDURING MYTHS OF ‘RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK’. FORTY YEARS LATER, ARCHAEOLOGISTS LOOK BACK AT WHAT THE FIRST INDIANA JONES MOVIE GOT WRONG ABOUT THEIR PROFESSION

Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, sizing up the idol, in the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark(CBS Photo Archive / Getty Images)

By Kristina Killgrove

SMITHSONIANMAG.COM

hat belongs in a museum!” Indiana Jones shouts at the man in the Panama hat, instantly creating the most memorable archaeological catch phrase of all time, though perhaps the competition isn’t all that fierce.

Forty years after Raiders of the Lost Ark premiered to the public on June 12, 1981, the outsized shadow of Indy still looms large over the field he ostensibly represented. Over three movies in the 1980s, plus a prequel television series and a fourth film that came out in 2008, Harrison Ford’s portrayal of Henry “Indiana” Jones, Jr., became indelibly tied to American archaeology. Despite it being set in the 1930s, an homage to the popcorn serials of the 1940s, and a cinematic blockbuster of the 1980s, Raiders of the Lost Ark is still influential to aspiring and veteran archaeologists alike. Even in the 21st century, several outdated myths about archaeological practice have endured thanks to the “Indiana Jones effect.” And contemporary archaeologists, many of whom harbor a love/hate relationship with the films, would like to set the record straight.

Myth 1: Rugged, swashbuckling, fedora-wearing Indiana Jones is what most archaeologists are like.

Raiders was set in the 1930s, “a time when 99 percent of archaeologists were white men,” says Bill White of University of California, Berkeley. Casting Ford was true to the time, as was the portrayal of Indy’s “treatment of cultural materials, because that’s how archaeologists treated sites, women, and non-white people back then,” according to White, who partners with African American communities to do public archaeology on St. Croix, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

In the fictional Raiders world, White adds, Jones ignored safety precautions, did not listen to the wishes of Indigenous people, and broke every sort of ethical guideline about archaeological remains, such as destroying sites rather than preserving them.

The face of archaeology today is shifting away from those who look like Indiana Jones, albeit slowly. In a 2010 needs assessment survey of the membership of the Society for American Archaeology, 84 percent identified as being Caucasian. White cautions that the myth of Indiana Jones as the quintessential archaeologist means that “archaeology appeals to a certain demographic, and is a turn-off to most other demographics,” a theme he has elaborated on in his Sapiens essay, “Why the Whiteness of Archaeology Is a Problem.” This has not stopped some archaeologists from leaning into the stereotype, though. A simple Google news search reveals dozens of white male archaeologists being called the “real-life Indiana Jones.”

Gender diversity within archaeology has evolved much more quickly, however. “Archaeology is dominated by women—white women have taken over archaeology,” says Alexandra Jones, founder of Archaeology in the Community, a D.C.-area nonprofit that seeks to increase community awareness of archaeology through enrichment programs and public events. Even though Jones has run her organization for over a decade, she says that “people don’t usually expect me, as an African American female, to show up to these events.”

Jones emphasizes that she finds support from women and people of color who are empowered by seeing a representative of their communities doing archaeology. “We are the new iteration and the future of the field; we are very inclusive and diverse,” Jones (no relation, of course) notes.

She stresses the need for her field to be inclusive of a range of voices and life experiences, because archaeology needs a “polyvocal, intersectional view coming from the community in order to do the science of studying that community’s culture.” If archaeologists do not work towards welcoming a more diverse body of archaeological practitioners, they will miss out on advances in the field, she argues.

“Since archaeology is a humanistic science, it matters greatly who is doing the asking and generating the data,” White explains.

Myth 2: Archaeologists work primarily in universities and museums.

In the movies, Indiana Jones teaches archaeology at fictional Marshall College, and his close collaborator, Marcus Brody, is a museum curator who helps arrange and fund Indy’s treasure-hunting adventures. These job titles are reflective of the early 20th-century enterprise of archaeology, but today, up to 90 percent of American archaeologists work in a broad field known as cultural resource management (CRM). Also known as heritage management, CRM deals with the relationship between archaeology and everyday life. On its most bureaucratic level, CRM covers the broad and the specific regulations that govern historical, architectural, and archaeological interests and preservation in the U.S……………..

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/enduring-myths-raiders-lost-ark-180977923/