Fujimura Shinichi

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Fujimura Shinichi (藤村新一, b. 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 basis of numerous textbooks and research of other archaeologists. His reputation kept the would-be critics silent. He gained a position as a deputy director in Tohoku Paleolithic Institute.

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

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

Fujimura confessed the same day in a press conference. He said that he had wanted to be known as the person who would have found the earliest stoneware in Japan. He had planted the artifacts from his own collection to strata that would have indicated earlier dates. In Kamitakamori he had planted 61 of 65 artifacts and earlier 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. Professor Mitsuo Kagawa of Beppu University hanged himself. Publishers of archaeology textbooks had to change everything. Most of Fujimura's other findings have been later proven to be forgeries.

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Political Implications

The cornerstone of the traditional Japanese national myth was that the Japanese people have a unique ethnic ancestry and are not related to the people of surrounding nations, specifically Korea and China (see nihonjinron). Modern archaeological evidence, however, suggests that the Japanese are related to the Koreans (amongst others) as several kings of the Kofun period may have been related to dynasties in the Baekje Kingdom of Korea. Although most Japanese accept these findings, a small group of nationalists (who wield significant political clout), still espouse the "uniqueness" theory. Fujimura's findings of increasingly ancient artifacts had led to the discarding of the Korean descent theories and bolstered the nationalists' claim to Japan's unique ancestry. However, the inconsistences between Fujimura's finds and almost all other archaeological evidence eventually aroused suspicion.

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