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There is one thing that all spectacular hoaxes have in common - they provide
“evidence” for something we already want to believe. Whether alien
abductions or seances with the dead, hoaxes reflect personal and cultural
hopes and desires. This is no less true with archaeological hoaxes. Take,
for instance, the Piltdown Man affair of ca. 1908, in which the stained jaw
of a modern ape (orangutan) was attached to a semi-fossilized recent human
braincase, and accepted by much of the scientific community of the early
20th century as a direct human ancestor. This fairly obvious deception worked
because most scholars at the time wanted to believe that our progenitors
had large brains and primitive bodies, not the other way around (i.e. the
small-brained, bipedal ancestors we have since discovered). So is the case
with a recent hoax perpetrated by Shinichi Fujimura, a national hero in Japan,
that has both overwhelmed and shamed the Japanese authorities, calling into
question several new theories of Japan’s ancient heritage.
Once known as “God’s hand” or the “divine digger”
for his luck in finding important artifacts, Fujimura began making his first
discoveries as an amateur archaeologist in the 1970s. He shot to fame in
1981 after discovering the oldest artifacts then known in Japan, from a stratum
dating back over 40,000 years. Since that time he became the Deputy Director
of the private Tohoku Paleolithic Institute and worked on a reported 180
prehistoric sites in the country. Repeatedly, he was able to rewrite history
with progressively older finds, pushing back the antiquity of Japan by hundreds
of years at a time. At his most recent excavation at the site of Kami-Takamori
in Tsukidate, of Miyagi Prefecture (fig.1; ca. 190 miles north of Tokyo),
he claimed to discover artifacts dating back to 600,000 years ago (in the
era of Homo erectus) - objects that appeared to show that Paleolithic man
at this time w as far more sophisticated than heretofore believed.
While there were few public criticisms of his work in academia, others eventually
became suspicious of his uncanny luck. Thus it was that shortly after 6 a.m.
on October 22, 2000 reporters from the Mainichi Shimbun (Mainichi
Daily) caught Fujimura on videotape burying stone tools within the sediment
of the Kami-Takamori site. His disgrace became public on November 5th when
the paper published photographs of him digging a hole, placing artifacts
within it, and then tramping down the earth again with his boot. Fig.1: Map of Japan showing two site areas with planted "Paleolithic"
artifacts, including Soshin Fudozake on Hokkaido Island, and Kami-Takamori
in Miyagi prefecture, the center of Fujimora's activities. In his televised
apology, Fujimura blamed his deceit on the burden of “having to find
ever older sites,” and confessed to burying 61 out of 65 items that
were unearthed from the dig this year, as well all 29 of the finds from the
Soshin Fudozaka excavations in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost main island
(fig.1). However, Fujimura insisted that the remaining four artifacts as
well as supposed post-holes found at the site were genuine.
Furthermore, he at first claimed that his important discoveries at other
sites were also unadulterated, (although he later confessed to planting artifacts
in at least 42 sites), and that no other researchers were involved in the
scam. “I personally planted them and no one else took part. Please
don’t discredit the whole dig, because there were some authentic
finds,” Fujimura said. “My actions were a disgrace...I’m really
sorry for my family and friends.” Tragically, an associate, Mitsuo Kagawa,
a 78 year-old professor emeritus, took his own life in the wake of the recent
scandal, after being accused by a magazine of having also planted artifacts.
As hoaxes go, Fujimura’s methods were crude and rather obvious;
simply put, he “salted” various archaeological sites he was excavating
with artifacts from his own collections. In light of modern excavation methods
it is difficult to see how this was not discovered almost immediately - the
sediment surrounding the artifacts would undoubtedly have appeared disturbed
to the trained eye. Moreover, such stunts as leading reporters during a news
conference back to the site and making a fantastic new discovery on the spot,
would certainly arouse the suspicions of any reasonably healthy skeptic.
In addition, even a researcher who worked with Fujimura for over a decade
in various excavating projects was forced to note that, “Every historically
significant finding was made while others were not digging,” which of
itself, one would think, would lead others to suspect.
So it is amazing that over the course of perhaps 20 years of deception, so
few dissentions were voiced to Fujimura’s spectacular discoveries. Only
two scholars, Oda Shizuo and Charles Kealley, publicly voiced their concerns
about Japan’s Paleolithic discoveries; however, even while noting that
90% or more of the Early Paleolithic sites and artifacts were found by one
person [Fujimura] and the artifacts showed little change over 100,000s of
years, they could not conceive of the blatant deception that was the real
problem.
Fujimura’s straightforward con was undoubtedly accepted by the
establishment, as well as the popular press, because it gave them evidence
of what they already wanted to believe - the great antiquity of the Japanese
people. In particular, the Japanese are pressed to compare the age of humanity
in their lands against that on the Chinese mainland, where hominids are known
from as early as 1.3 million years ago (see Recent Finds, p.5). Since the roots of modern
Japanese society are found in China, and its culture ever since has been
influenced from the mainland, the Japanese have suffered from a sense of
lacking a purely native beginning. Thus Fujimura’s discovery of an
increasingly ancient Japanese Paleolithic - with perhaps the earliest evidence
for true human culture (i.e. house building) not only in Asia but in the
entire world - was a source of tremendous national pride.
Officials responded almost immediately to Fujimura’s confession by removing
objects from his excavations from museum displays and canceling a large portion
of the Tohoku Institute’s funding. Not long after, publishers offered
to rewrite scholastic history books to remove any mention of Fujimura’s
finds. Soon, other archaeological confessions followed. Junichi Nagasaki,
an assistant professor at Sapporo International University, who had worked
with Fujimura at the Shimobiman-nishi excavations admitted that he did not
bother to scientifically date the sediment in which artifacts were found
before declaring they were 500,000 years old. “We haven’t carried
out a survey to determine the age of the stratum,” Nagasaki disclosed.
“The estimated age was decided by me, Fujimura, (Toshiaki) Kamada (the
head of the Tohoku Paleolithic Institute) and some others...I hope we can
determine the precise age with future research.”
In light of the broadening scandal scholars have begun to reevaluate not
just the 40-plus excavations where Fujimura has by now admitted to deception,
but all twenty years of his discoveries, and many related claims of Paleolithic
findings. Moreover, scholars have begun to question the closed academic
environment that allowed such fraud to survive. It is still too soon to evaluate
how Japanese Paleolithic studies will evolve, and whether the earliest appearance
of humans in the land will once again rest at about 30,000 BP - approximately
as it was known before Fujimura began his work.
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Michele A. Miller
.
. References:
Keally, Charles T. 2000. “Japan Scandals
- This Time It’s Archaeology.”
http://www. ancienteastasia.org/special/japanarchscandal2.htm; (17 Nov. 2000). Mainichi Daily
News (Mainichi Shimbun): 6 Nov. 2000, “Dirty digger
unearthed;” 11 Nov. 2000, “Archaeological Fraud at
Shimobimannishi;” 22 Dec. 2000, “Digger’s deeds bury book;”
29 Sept 2001]
Oda, Shizuo and Charles T. Keally. 1986. “A Critical Look at the
Palaeolithic and ‘Lower Palaeolithic’ Research in Miyagi Prefecture,
Japan.” Jinruigaku Zasshi (Journal Anthropological Soc.
Nippon), 94: 325-361; Oda, Shizuo. 1985. “Doubts about the Stone Artifacts
and Dates for the Miyagi Early Palaeolithic Sites.” Kagaku
Asahi, July 1985, pp.27-29. (English summary by C.T. Keally, 27 Aug.
2001, rev. 12 Nov. 2001);
This article appears in the Recent Finds in Archaeology section of Vol.3, No.2 of Athena
Review.
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