Indiana Jones is the image that springs to mind when one is talking archaeology. Harrison Ford in a hat hanging off a biplane desperately clutching an artefact is far from the reality of fossil hunters in Victoria, however, they are making not only a name for themselves but are expanding fast. This new personal success is a welcome change to their past reality.

Many real-life archaeologists in Victoria are undergoing a popularity surge of their own, leading to personal success that before now was unattainable.  Due to the tightening of state legislation in 2007, which affects developers or government agencies working on land deemed culturally significant, the amount of work has skyrocketed, providing a huge workload for archaeologist Dr. Vincent Clark of Melbourne.

The legislation is very specific regarding sites of Aboriginal significance, where artefacts from hundreds or thousands of years ago, like stone tools used by Aborigines, may be recovered.

While Aboriginal people have been in Victoria for about 30,000 years, Dr. Clark maintains it’s rare to find anything that old. Sites up to 5000 years have recently been discovered in Gippsland. Anything found by archaeologists, which could include fire remains, tools, sacred trees, or more rarely, cave paintings, is noted in the plan and either given to the Aboriginal community, used for education, left alone or filed in a report.

Beginning his archaeological career in his 20s in Jordan due to the fact that his interest was not catered for in Australia, Dr. Clark eventually started his own business after being made redundant from his public service job in the mid-90s, working mostly on his own from his garage. Then in 1998, he took on more staff for his first big project, undertaking archaeological studies of the land that about 40 kilometres of the Calder Freeway was about to be built on.

He has in the past two years expanded his one-man operation in his garage, more than doubling in size to nine-full time employees, plus casual workers.

The relatively new personal success means Dr. Clark often spends more time managing employees and juggling the finances than getting out in the field, however, his years of sifting through historic treasures have given him a particularly interesting look at life. He says people would be surprised to know what lies under the suburbs and under the CBD as well.