But at least films such as those in the Indiana Jones series do not claim to be science.
Myths simplify the past.
Such myths help us reduce the immense complexity of the past to manageable units, but they become mental prisons when we do not recognize them as simplifications. The research carried out by archaeologists and anthropologists becomes grist for media myth-making about the past. Certain documentary films reinforce myths as much as they enlighten viewers about science. They compress years of painstaking research into safaris in pursuit of bones and artifacts, and they reduce complex human lives to specimens and skillful analyses to lucky breaks. Television is not the only culprit, but it is a pervasive medium that speaks far louder than the scholars who might dispute its distortions.