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They are both archaeologists, and both answer to the name Dr. Jones - but the similarities end there. "I always tell people the original character was Utah Jones, but they wanted another syllable in it," said Kevin Jones, Utah's state archaeologist, of Indiana Jones, the fictional adventurer played by Harrison Ford.
With Thursday's worldwide opening of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," real-life archaeologists once again are reckoning with the character's legacy - and how the movie depiction of archaeology differs from the actual practice.
"We've all had adventures - maybe not fighting the Nazis, but on a smaller scale," Kevin Jones said. "We often work in remote places, so we have scrapes with floods and danger and things like that. We're accustomed to places where you have to fend for yourself a lot of times. . . . We just don't sit in an office all the time. We get to go to rather exotic places, and do rather exotic things."
Shannon Boomgarden, a doctoral candidate at the University of Utah and assistant director of the U.'s Range Creek Field School, said adventure in her business depends on where you're working. "A truck breaks down, a tree falls along the road," Boomgarden said. "We've had bears wander into camp, we've had rattlesnakes."
But what Indiana Jones does in the movies is actually just about the opposite of what a real archaeologist would do. In reality, the artifacts are only important when viewed in the context of their surroundings. "He destroys a lot of information, going after one artifact," Boomgarden said. "We don't bulldoze the whole temple to get one object," she said.
"It's more of an academic enterprise, trying to understand the way people lived," said Jim Allison, an assistant professor at Brigham Young University.
Kevin Jones said the movies' depiction of archaeologists as plunderers is disturbing. "There is a concern that it presents our profession as treasure hunters," he said, adding that archaeology is "about discovering the past, not about glowing rocks."
Many archaeologists, though, appreciate the attention the films have given to the profession. Last week, Ford, the actor who plays the mythical archaeologist, was elected to the board of directors of the nonprofit Archaeological Institute of America.
Allison likes to quote a line from the 1989 installment "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," when Dr. Jones says "70 percent of archaeology is done in the library."
"But it doesn't seem to be what he practices," Allison said, admitting that he is "going stir crazy right now" because he's not leading BYU's archaeology field school this summer.
Indiana Jones' greatest gift to archaeology may be drawing new generations of students to the field. "Every year, when students apply for the field school," Boomgarden said, "we get at least five applications that say Indiana Jones was an inspiration."
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