Linda, Thanks for your message.. I haven't seen any of those movies for some time...it will be interesting to go back and watch them again, with the "what I know now" attitude. Your reaction is similar to mine when I saw "Candyman"...the film about a graduate folklorist (female) investigating urban and supernatural lore... On Fri, 19 Apr 1996, Linda Seguin wrote: > Regan Myriam Lee writes: > "...forgive me for my ignorance, but *why* is the Harrison Ford character > "Indianna Jones" considered a "bad" scientist?" > > I remember going to see "Indianna Jones and the Last Crusade" with the rest > of the crew when I was in archaeological field school. Don't get me wrong- > I love those movies, but we laughed through the whole thing. If my memory > serves me correctly, didn't he stomp through a bunch of skeletons just before > setting their tomb on fire? Or maybe it was the bad guys who started the fire . > Anyway, *real* archaeologists carefully measure and map *every* object they > find; they don't just stomp through everything else to get to the "good stuff. " > I never saw Indy with a tape measure or a notebook. I don't think I ever even > saw him with a trowel! Ostensibly, archaeologists are looking for the > information that objects can give them, they're not hunting for buried > treasure. For a more accurate depiction of the archaeological method you > might check out the "Calvin and Hobbes" strip in which Calvin concludes that > "Archaeology is the most mind-numbingly boring job on the planet." Sometimes > it is. :) > > Linda Seguin > Science Library > University of Georgia >