Indiana Jones adventures retraced by real-life archaeologist and now its his turn on silver screen

You gotta dig it.An archeologist is on a mission to reveal the history behind Indiana Jones — and has found himself living out some of his Hollywood hero’s adventures in real life along the way.Dr.David West Reynolds has spent the last two decades traveling the world to retrace the journey taken by the whip-cracking archeologist in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and rediscovering the long-lost sets and locations where the 1981 blockbuster was filmed.“I find the field is very uncomfortable with Indiana Jones as an ambassador,” the University of Michigan-educated archeologist told The Post.

“I constantly hear from from the academics about how movies like ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark is disrespectful to history.And I want to show that’s not actually the full story.”The Indiana native is now raising funds for a documentary.“I want to show how that movie is just full of surprising accuracy,” he said.

“And that adds up to respect for history.This documentary is about revealing a surprising real-life history and archeology behind ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.'”Reynolds’ journey to the documentary, “Chasing Raiders,” has taken him from humid jungles to scorching deserts to frigid arctic seas — but it started a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.In 1995 Reynolds was completing his PhD, but felt his dissertation wasn’t truly testing his mettle as a field archeologist, so he decided to prove to himself what he could do.A bona fide “Star Wars” nerd, he got the idea to trace down the desert locations where the original 1977 movie had been filmed in North Africa — sites which had been completely lost to time, despite the movie’s enduring fame.“Before GPS it was easy for locations to become lost,” Reynolds said “And if it was a wilderness location, those were hard to keep track of.

There weren’t ordinance maps of the wilderness in Tunisia.In the 70s, the world still seemed infinite.”Reynolds had little more than some Topps gu...