In the movies, there’s Indiana Jones; but in the real world, there was Roy Chapman Andrews. Some say this fearless, larger-than-life adventurer—who, like Indiana, had a wide-brimmed hat, leather jacket, and six-shooter—may have been the inspiration for the big-screen hero.

From 1910 to 1930, Andrews led countless expeditions for the American Museum of Natural History, boldly facing such dangers as killer pythons, man-eating wild dogs, marauding bandits, blinding sandstorms, and imprisonment by corrupt officials. Even as China and Mongolia exploded in revolutionary chaos, he and his team of paleontologists intrepidly journeyed by car, camel, and horse through the uncharted Gobi desert where he discovered the largest deposits of dinosaur fossils ever seen. His group amazed the world with their discoveries—and scientists are still following in Andrews’s footsteps, digging in the rich sites he found.