Random Indiana Jones Was A Terrible Archaeologist (15 items)

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  (#1) That Time He Looted A Temple For Gold And Ignored All The Other Significant Artifacts

  At the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones takes a golden idol from the temple, setting off many booby traps along the way. Real archaeologists object to this portrayal of a "smash and grab" style of archaeology, where Jones drops in, grabs the most valuable object, and runs away.

  Archaeologist Marcello Canuto explains, "That first scene, where he's in the temple and he's replacing that statue with a bag of sand – that's what looters do... [The temple builders] are using these amazing mechanisms of engineering and all he wants to do is steal the stupid gold statue."

  It's clear Indy does not care about the actual site at all or else he'd probably be pretty interested in the ancient, still-in-existence booby trap mechanisms. He's just looking for a valuable score.
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  (#2) When He Destroyed An Entire Archaeological Site

  When Indiana Jones goes after the golden idol in Raiders of The Lost Ark, he basically destroys the entire temple by haphazardly activating all the traps in his escape with the idol. In real archaeology, most information is gleaned from the site itself and not the valuables it contains. Here, Indy did the opposite thing of most real archeologists. 

  Smithsonian archaeologist Jane Walsh comments, "An academic would look at that whole scene and say, 'Well, he just destroyed the context of this site. And what can you learn from this golden idol?'"

  Somewhere back at Dr. Jones's university, professors have a lot of questions about the technological genius of those Raiders booby traps, but unfortunately Indy has already ruined them.
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  (#3) That Time He Used A Human Corpse As A Torch

  It's clear Indiana Jones believes that shiny objects are the only artifacts that matter, and that belief definitely shows in his treatment of human remains in The Last Crusade.

  While in the catacombs under Venice, Italy, Jones decides he needs a better light source. In a scene sure to break the heart of any bioarchaeologist, he opts to source it from the ancient human remains in the catacombs. So, he rips off some of the body's remaining clothes, dumps the entire body, and detaches an arm bone from it to create his torch.

  Real archaeologists face ethical questions about disturbing human remains and balk at this wanton destruction. Archaeologist Duncan Sayer says, “The destruction of human remains prevents future study; it is the forensic equivalent of book burning, the willful ruin of knowledge.” 
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  (#4) When He Completely Failed To Work With The Locals

  As Indiana Jones pursues the golden idol in Raiders of the Lost Ark, he's being followed by the local Hovitos tribe. When he finally acquires the idol, he's captured by the Hovitos, along with French archaeologist Dr. René Belloq. Belloq speaks their language and develops a relationship with them.

  Archaeologists are commonly concerned with creating a considerate and mutually beneficial relationship with the local people whose cultural site they are working on.

  Most archaeologists, at least. Not Indiana Jones, who breaks into their temple, steals their idol, and apparently never bothers to learn some of the local language to try to speak with them. In the end, he loses the idol to Belloq, who doesn't make these same mistakes.
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  (#5) When He Looted the Ark of the Covenant From A Real, Legal Archaeological Site

  When Indiana Jones goes after the Ark of the Covenant, he steals the item away from a real archaeological site that experts are in the process of excavating.

  "True, the Nazis were trying to find the Ark of the Covenant so they could destroy the world," archaeologist Marcello Canuto says. "But methodologically and legally they were in the right."

  The Nazi archaeologists were certainly up to no good, but presumably they had legally obtained permission to excavate. They were properly excavating the site instead of just dropping in, taking the most valuable thing, and running away like Indiana Jones was definitely trying to do.
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  (#6) When He Went Scorched Earth On The Ark Of The Covenant Archaeological Site

  After losing the Ark of the Covenant to the Nazis, Indiana Jones gets trapped in the Well of Souls (where he whines about snakes). In his attempt to escape, he topples an Anubis statue and takes out an entire wall of the site.

  This is another example of Indiana Jones's scorched earth approach to archaeology, where everything in the site becomes expendable as soon as the valuable is removed. Who knows what secrets about the Ark could have been gleaned from the parts of the site that are now rubble?

  In support of the characters trying to do at least semi-ethical archaeology, archaeologist Marcello Canuto explains, "If someone was to come into my camp and dig up the site with some knowledge I didn't have, and I was to catch them in the middle of the night, yeah, I might throw him in a snake pit too."
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  (#7) That Time He Used Child Labor During A Child Kidnapping Crisis

  While Indiana Jones has his share of unconventional field assistants on his adventures, they usually have some background in archaeology. The notable exception is in Temple of Doom, where he not only takes along the fairly useless showgirl Willie, but also a minor.

  Throughout Temple of Doom, Jones used 11-year-old Short Round as an assistant, constantly endangering the child's life. It's already an ethically dicey area to employ a child as an assistant at all, let alone taking him to a place where the villagers are reasonably sure people are kidnapping children.

  While Jones might get a pass on the lack of child labor laws at the time, no ethics code would allow that kind of child endangerment.
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  (#8) When He Sold Artifacts To Shady Dealers For Diamonds

  In Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones becomes (once again) embroiled in the illegal antiquities trade when he delivers the remains of Emperor Nurhachi to the gangster Lao Che in return for a large diamond once owned by Alexander the Great.

  This scene raises a number of issues. First, Indy most likely looted the Emperor's remains from somewhere, removing it from its context (AKA the most important aspect of a site for archaeologists). Second, he sold the extremely important archaeological find to an antiquities dealer, even abandoning his usual commitment to bringing artifacts to a museum. Sure, the diamond could be an important artifact, as well, but is it more important than the Emperor's remains? Third, he is bartering with human remains, raising an entirely different ethical problem.

  Archaeologist Lord Colin Renfrew details, "For many years, concerned archaeologists have indicated how the attitudes of some antiquities dealers... and indeed of a number of leading museums have created a climate in which the traffic in illicit antiquities promotes the looting of archaeological sites worldwide." Indy is part of this damaging black market.
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  (#9) When He Took Items From Other Countries For His Museum

  Indiana Jones claims that the artifacts he seeks "belong in a museum" – but whose museum? Dr. Jones attempts to take items from all over the world back to his own university's museum, ignoring their cultural heritage. Here's the thing: that isn't actually at all okay with real archaeologists.

  National Geographic archaeological fellow Fred Hiebert explains, “Cultural artifacts need to stay in the place where they come from. Where they belong." Because this enables them to contribute to preserving a cultural heritage and learning about a place's past.
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  (#10) When He Never, Ever Recorded His Data

  Indiana Jones is always prepared to take on Nazis or get himself out of a booby-trapped temple, but he rarely seems prepared to record his findings in any way.

  His father, Dr. Henry Jones, Sr., kept a complete record of his entire search for the Holy Grail, a valuable treasure trove of information even when the grail and the site were lost. However, you never see Indiana Jones keeping any records, which would be important given his tendency to destroy every archaeological site he has ever visited.

  Archaeologist William Parkinson says, "[I]f you spend 20 years meticulously excavating an archaeological site and you never publish (your findings), then you've just spent 20 years looting. There's no point! If you're not publishing, you're not any better than a tomb raider."
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  (#11) When He Used A Grave Site As Protective Armor

  In The Last Crusade, Indiana Jones searches for clues regarding the location of the Holy Grail in the knight's tomb in the catacombs. He finds valuable information on the knight's shield in his grave. Once he possesses this, Jones is willing to do away with the entire grave site.

  The grail protectors set the petroleum in the catacombs on fire, and Jones has to seek an escape route. The first idea to come into his mind, apparently, is to dump the knight's body, throw the coffin upside down, and use it as an air pocket.

  In the ongoing ethical debate over excavating archaeological human remains, this is a case that both sides would agree is heartbreaking to watch.
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  (#12) When He Didn't Get Permission From Local Authorities

  Walter Donovan in The Last Crusade was thoroughly evil in his quest for the grail, willing to kill countless people to get his hands on it. However, when it came to archaeological ethics, he was surprisingly concerned with doing things the right way. He went to the local authority, the Sultan, and obtained permission to seek the Grail and remove it from the country.

  Indiana Jones never does any such thing, never seeks permission from any authority connected to the artifacts he is after, which may explain why he has such a difficult time in comparison to other characters like Donovan and Belloq. Jones is far more of a looter than any of them.

  Archaeologist William Parkinson explains:

  "Nobody is going to condone looting archaeological sites, which is really what we're talking about in the case of just going in and hiring local people to show you where something is so you can grab it for a museum. But in the '30s? I don't know that it occurred. Even at the turn of the (last) century with the excavation of things like King Tut's tomb, it was still done under the premise that you're trying to learn about the past."
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  (#13) When He Failed To Do Any Of His Own Research

  It's safe to assume that without the hard research work of Henry Jones, Sr., Indiana Jones would have been killed at some point in The Last Crusade. While Indy often seems to do enough preparation to not die in various booby traps, that doesn't hold true for his adventure for the Holy Grail.

  Indiana goes in entirely unprepared for the various traps that guard the Holy Grail. He is only saved from certain death by his father's research, which tells him what to expect. Before his father informs him of this, he seems perfectly willing to rush headlong into danger for the Grail.

  Even Jones himself admits in this movie that most archaeology is done in the library, which he would do well to remember if he doesn't want to get his head taken off by a booby trap.
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  (#14) When He Smuggled Artifacts

  When Indiana Jones returns to his university in Raiders of the Lost Ark, he brings back several artifacts that he offers to British archaeologist, Dr. Marcus Brody. Brody tells him the museum will buy them, trusting that Jones followed antiquities laws. This trust is probably a mistake, since, you know, Jones was technically running an illegal antiquities trade ring with Brody.

  Since Jones was definitely not performing standard archaeology, he likely smuggled those artifacts into the country. The artifacts ended up in Brody's museum, probably with little information about them or the context in which they were found, essentially turning valuable archaeological finds into art pieces. Without information on where they came from and how they were created, archaeological objects become nice things to look at, but there's little that can be learned from them.

  Archaeologist Ricardo Elia explains, "There are big private collections and museum collections of art, not archaeological objects, with very little information on them at all. The only thing that you can do about them now is to talk about their beauty and style--their 'art.'" Jones's smuggled goods fall into this art category.
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  (#15) That Time He Didn't Expect Snakes

  "Why did it have to be snakes?" Indy moans as he faces the veritable pit of snakes that is the Well of Souls in Raiders of the Lost Ark. This whinging about snakes, however, is one of the few semi-accurate representations of archaeology from the film. According to real archaeologists, it's always snakes.

  Archaeologist Fred Hiebert says, “I’ve worked on five different continents, and every place I’ve worked—whether it’s underwater, in the sands of Turkmenistan, or in the jungles of Honduras—I always find dens of snakes. Always.”

  Realistically, Indy should have expected snakes by this point.

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