He's back! Nineteen years after the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones has returned in the adventure of the Crystal Skull. Fortunately, I'm no longer teaching: back in 1981, a kind of hysteria for archaeology gripped my students. I knew the Indiana Jones frenzy had assumed serious dimensions when students cameto my Introductory Archaeology course in fedora hats. I think they expected meto wield a bullwhip and wear a leather jacket as I lectured about buried citiesand golden sepulchers. Unfortunately, Indiana Jones would not fare well in thereal world of archaeology, where we talk about radiocarbon dates, potsherds, and settlement patterns. Most of those who wore the hats dropped out: presumably they are now real estate developers--or in jail. (Yes, dear reader, I do have some former students who are guests of the government.) Even today, after all these years, I sometimes sense that lecture audiences are looking at me appraisingly and weighing me against this most popular of Hollywood heroes. After a few minutes, I sense I'm found wanting. And when the Wall Street Journal asked me to write an essay about Indiana Jones as an archaeologist, I really wondered.

When the movies first appeared, there was the inevitable pontificating in archaeological circles about the appalling misconceptions that Indiana Jones gave the world about archaeology. Those who bloviated missed the point. As the Oxford archaeologist John Gowlett once remarked, looking for serious archaeology in these movies is like looking for serious physics in the Star Wars epics. The Indiana Jones movies have little or nothing to do with archaeology of any kind. They are good, old fashioned, and highly commercial, adventure stories revolving around quests for mythic artifacts, which are pure Hollywood entertainment, nothing more. And they're good entertainment at that, except for the Temple of Doom, which is a sophomoric romp. The closest we come to archaeological reality is with the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which revolves around a form of artifact that actually exists. There are about eight crystal skulls in museums and private hands, which are said to be of Aztec or Maya origin. In fact, all of them are modern forgeries. But, and this is probably why George Lucas chose them as an example, they are alleged to have occult powers. One skull in England is said to emit a blue light and to disable computer hard drives. They are the ideal heroes for a movie involving a quest for power and sacred artifacts, with a pleasing mixture of sci-fi and psychic powers, to say nothing of extraterrestrials, all of which appeals to George Lucas. I thoroughly enjoyed The Crystal Skull, especially the sword work and the library scene, where Indiana Jones memorably remarks to a student that archaeology is done outside libraries and quotes Gordon Childe almost as an aside. But serious archaeology, never. This is good solid entertainment, with a nice setup for a future younger Indiana Jones tied in at the end.

Anyone who thinks that the Indiana Jones movies demean archaeology needs to get a sense of proportion and, indeed, a life. The four films have done much to encourage interest in the past, and anyone who looks closer soon realizes that real world archaeology is something very different. Lucas and Spielberg are well aware of the importance of archaeology in today's world, which indeed has potential for entertainment, but a very different kind from that of the swashbuckling adventurer archaeologist of yesteryear. As for Harrison Ford, he is very serious about the need to study the past scientifically. Indeed, he has just been elected to the Board of the Archaeological Institute of America, which is a nice compliment both to Mr Ford and to archaeology itself.

So sit back and enjoy The Crystal Skull and don't worry about the archaeology. That's another world, and one that, on the whole, has benefited from Indiana Jones.