Shinichi Fujimura

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Shinichi Fujimura (藤村新一 Fujimura Shin'ichi, born 1950?) was a Japanese amateur archaeologist who faked important discoveries for years before he was exposed in 2000.

In 1972, Fujimura began to study archaeology and to look for prehistoric artifacts. At the time he was working for a manufacturing company. He established his reputation as a leading amateur archaeologist in Japan when he made a major discovery in 1981. By stratum, it was dated as much as 40,000 years old.

Over the years, he worked in 180 archaeological digs all around Japan and always seemed to find something important and increasingly older. The superstitious ones would talk about his "divine hands." His work became the basis of numerous textbooks and research of other archaeologists. His reputation kept would-be critics silent. He gained a position as a deputy director at the Tohoku Paleolithic Institute.

On October 23, 2000, Fujimura and his team announced that they had made an important find at the Kamitakamori site near Tsukidate, Miyagi Prefecture. The finds were dated 570,000 years old.

However, on November 5, 2000, the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun published pictures of Fujimura digging holes and burying the artifacts his team later found. The pictures had been taken one day before the find was announced.

Fujimura confessed the same day in a press conference. He said that he had wanted to be known as the person who had found the earliest stoneware in Japan. He had planted the artifacts from his own collection in strata that would have indicated earlier dates. In Kamitakamori he had planted 61 of 65 artifacts, and had earlier planted all of the stonework in the Soshin Fudozaka site in the Hokkaido Prefecture. He claimed these were the only times he had planted artifacts. He was immediately dismissed from his position at the Tohoku Institute.

All of Fujimura's work immediately fell under suspicion, and the discovery also affected the research of many other archaeologists in Japan and elsewhere, based on his findings. In 2001, accusations of forgery against Professor Mitsuo Kagawa of Beppu University were published. Professor Mitsuo Kagawa hanged himself, leaving a note proclaiming that he was innocent, and that he had committed suicide in protest. Publishers of archaeology textbooks had to change everything. Most of Fujimura's other findings were later also proven to be forgeries.

[edit] External links

  • Nature (2001) "Fake pottery buries theory of early start for Christianity." "Nature", 438 (7070)
  • Normile, Dennis (2001) Japanese Fraud Highlights Media-Driven Research Ethic.” "Science" 5 January 291: 34-35.
  • Science (2000) “Structural Failure” in “Random Samples” 10 November 290: 1083.
  • Science (2001) “Futher fakes.” in “Science Scope” 5 October 294: 31.
  • Normile, Dennis (2001) “Questions Arise Over Second Japanese Site” "Science" 23 November 294: 1634
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