Indiana Jones is back! Fifteen years after the last, (purportedly final) adventure, the fedora-wearing, whip-cracking hero has returned for a new round of death-defying action, treasure-hunting, thrills and spills. There is no doubt that Harrison Ford, (now in his eighties) is a remarkably talented actor. The Indiana Jones franchise would not be possible without him. However, this does not blind us to the racist literary origins of the eponymous character, no matter how entertaining the movies.

Wait a minute…..Indiana Jones and racism? How can we associate the light entertainment of a Hollywood character, someone who travels to foreign lands and is highly knowledgeable in ancient cultures, with something as despicable as racism? No, I am not suggesting that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are vicious racists. No, not every moviegoer who watches the Indiana Jones movies is a closet Nazi. What we need to do is dig a bit deeper into the character’s origins, because the basis of the supposed archaeologist is actually in the unsavoury practice of archaeological looting.

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are incredible filmmakers, and they have studied the field of artefacts and archaeology to make these movies. They should know that the Indiana Jones character is hardly an archaeologist, but a treasure-hunter; which is a polite way of saying archaeological looter. Let’s remember that he steals ancient artefacts – oh yes, only to sabotage the nefarious plans of the Nazis – and takes them to museums. A useful filmmaking tactic – our protagonist is only doing what he does to thwart another group of bad guys.

Disguising his looting with the noblest intentions, he does not actually take the treasures to the museums of their host nations. Don’t ancient Egyptian artefacts, for instance, belong in the museums of Egypt? That is not just my own opinion, but also the opinion of Geoffrey Robertson QC, the Australian human rights lawyer. He states that the British Museum, along with corresponding institutions in Paris and New York, constitute the largest receivers of stolen property in the world.

Marc Fennell, Australian journalist, documented the criminal plundering of ancient artefacts and indigenous civilisations by British colonialism in his documentary series Stuff the British Stole. The British empire was an effective looter, stealing numerous treasures from India, China and African nations. The Indiana Jones character was just one mercenary in this enormous pilfering enterprise.

Gerry Canavan, professor of English at Marquette University, writes in the Washington Post that the Indiana Jones character traces its origins to the swashbuckling adventure ‘boys’ entertainment’ stories of the 1930s and 40s. The lone, courageous white treasure-hunter and explorer, goes off to foreign lands for excitement, thrills and money.

The Allan Quatermain character, the protagonist of the King Solomon’s Mines novel (1885), is an early swashbuckling template of the Americanised Indiana Jones. H. Rider Haggard, the English novelist who created the fictional adventurer of Quartermain, wrote a series of novels extolling the white adventurer, who discovers exotic treasures and mysterious supernatural powers among the indigenous nations. Indiana Jones must negotiate clever booby-traps and poorly understood supernatural forces as he makes his way through various nonwhite continents.

With Quatermain, and Jones, the nonwhite East is a source of powers beyond the comprehension of the eminently rationalist, scientifically skeptical community from which the Europeans originate. It is funny how, in Hollywood, the advocate of the paranormal is the much-maligned ‘outsider’, defying the closed-minded rationalist scientific establishment. In the course of events, the domineering scientific community, hidebound by their philosophical materialist straitjacket, is proven wrong by the revelations of the maverick adventurer.

This appears to be an acknowledgement of the wisdom of the ancients, except for one incontrovertible fact; the indigenous nations had their own rationalist, scientific enquires and knowledge base. It was precisely this indigenous knowledge, and the scientific achievements of the Arab, Chinese, Indian and nonwhite worlds, that were covered up by the predatory nature of all-conquering empires, such as the British and French.

In the Raiders movie (1981), the villainous Nazi-collaborating French treasure hunter, taunts Indiana Jones – ‘we are very much alike.’ However, Dr Jones and his merry band are the only ones with a pure moral motivation. Jones and his native sidekick Sallah are risking their lives – and certain death in a concentration camp – for the glory of archaeological science. There are numerous archaeologists out there, pursuing field work to advance the discipline – Jones is not one of them.

There is a serious threat to the archaeological profession. It is not from looters or indigenous in cahoots with robbers. It is the heavy funding cuts to archaeological departments and education, demanded by a neoliberal business model which views archaeology, and the social sciences in general, as unprofitable and a burden on the goal of generating revenue. When universities and education are run specifically for profit, the importance of preserving the past for the future is obscured.

Archaeology in the UK is in deep trouble, and the Tory government seems committed to its ultra libertarian view of privatisation. This is unfortunate, just at a time when scientific methods, genetic analysis and so on, are becoming evermore important in the field of archaeology. The last thing we need is recycling a persistent anachronism, which only hinders a commitment to archaeology.