Japan Amazed as Archeologist’s Magic Exposed as Sleight of Hand

Renowned Japanese archeologist Shinichi Fujimura seemed to have the magic touch. Even as his colleagues dreamed of someday pulling off a single major discovery, Fujimura unearthed hundreds of prehistoric stone artifacts throughout the 1980s and ‘90s. In the process, he single-handedly pushed back the known origin of Japanese civilization by hundreds of thousands of years.

The 50-year-old was a hard worker, often arriving at excavation sites before his colleagues awoke. As his fame grew, his diligence, inspiration and legendary intuition earned him the nickname “God’s hand.” But along the way, academic skepticism grew loud enough to slip beyond the cozy walls of archeology and catch the attention of investigative reporters at the daily Mainichi Shimbun.

On Sunday, as Japanese watched in disbelief, Fujimura bowed his head in shame before television cameras and admitted that on several recent occasions his early morning visits were used to plant artifacts. Fujimura could no longer ignore his rivals’ charges. This time they had him on videotape.

In September and again last month, Mainichi reporters hid video cameras in the ruins of Fujimura dig sites. Shots taken Oct. 22 show him driving up at 6:18 a.m., looking around furtively and removing a plastic bag from his pocket. He then digs several holes, buries stoneware and stamps the dirt down for “discovery” later when his colleagues are presumably around to witness the find.

The disclosure has shocked this nation, where archeology and interest in heritage is something of an obsession. Japan’s long and isolated history, its belief that its cultural evolution is unique and an indigenous Shinto religion that emphasizes the spiritual power of natural objects combine to feed the Japanese fascination with what lies buried in their native soil.

Prehistoric discoveries are front-page news and regions commercialize their local finds with everything from “primitive man noodles” and “cave man marathons” to “archeological sake” and “hominoid cookies.”

The Tokyo National Museum has had to remove more than 20 pieces attributed to Fujimura from its permanent collection. Museums around the country are following suit. And many textbooks and university exam questions on the history and origins of the Japanese people must be rewritten.

Fujimura says he faked discoveries only at the two ruins filmed by the reporters: the Shintotsukawa site on the northern island of Hokkaido, where he worked in September; and the Tsukidate site, about 180 miles northwest of Tokyo, where he worked last month. In both cases, the stoneware he supposedly unearthed is more than 600,000 years old, dating back to the early Paleolithic period.

Not surprisingly, Fujimura is considered a less-than-reliable source these days. Japan’s Cultural Affairs Agency has announced plans to reexamine more than 150 sites he worked at over the past two decades in an effort to plumb the depths of the deceit. Newspapers fret that the scandal could set back Japanese archeology a decade or more.

The game ended for Fujimura on Saturday night, when Mainichi reporters showed their videotapes to Toshiaki Kamata, chairman of the small nonprofit Tohoku Paleolithic Institute, and to Fujimura, who served as the institute’s senior director. After watching the evidence, Mainichi officials say, Fujimura sat in stony silence for 10 minutes before muttering a stunned apology. Asked why he had done it, he would only repeat to himself: “Why? Why? Why?”

The institute called a news conference the next morning and Fujimura was fired. “God’s hand” told reporters he had been “tempted by the devil.” In his mea culpa, he detailed how he got up early on the first three mornings of the October dig to bury articles of stoneware. Of the 65 pieces found in eight locations at the ruins, 61 came from his private collection, he said. All 30 Stone Age artifacts unearthed on Hokkaido a month earlier were plants.

The Mainichi Shimbun--Japan’s third-largest daily, with a circulation of about 3.9 million--said it got onto the story when its investigative team received a tip during the summer. At the September dig, reporters caught Fujimura on camera burying artifacts but didn’t feel they had enough proof. “We wanted more evidence and didn’t feel one videotape was enough,” said a Mainichi official who asked not to be identified.

The case also has put a spotlight on Japan’s scientific system and its structural and financial weaknesses. Fujimura was able to pull off the fraud in part because the artifacts were not subject to much scientific scrutiny.

Most of the “proof” for discoveries is determined by the age of the soil in which the items are found. Fujimura simply buried newer items in older soil. And archeology here is a gentlemen’s game. It’s considered offensive to challenge fellow experts directly or demand that their findings be scientifically analyzed.

“Over the years, people started to question Fujimura’s uncanny ability to sniff out the oldest artifacts,” said an editorial in the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest daily, which also apologized this week for its own lack of scrutiny. “But these doubts never surfaced in part because of the way the archeological community operates.”

At the news conference, Fujimura took responsibility for his actions but also blamed the extreme pressure he faced. “I am sorry for causing trouble,” he said. “I was struggling to make achievements.”

In fact, many Japanese this week appeared to feel a certain sympathy for the crumpled figure, at a time when a deteriorated economy is forcing many to relinquish the security of lifetime employment in favor of quick results.

“I don’t know why, but I can’t hate him,” said Hiroko Iida, 28, who works at a ticket agency in Tokyo. “I feel kind of sorry for him.”

Iida and others said they see in Fujimura a man who tried without the benefit of credentials or wealth and little more than dogged determination to break into a field where prestige and name-brand degrees are the norm.

“In some ways he’s a symbol of all the stress in society right now,” said Takayo Yamamoto, a researcher with the Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living, a Tokyo think tank. “He’s a symbol of a salaryman who’s under strong pressure to answer to people’s expectations.”

Members of the archeology field are less forgiving. Sakuji Yoshimura, an archeology professor of Waseda University and a noted Egyptologist, said the discipline depends on trust and credibility, and Fujimura got carried away by commercialism and his own drive for glory. “How childish it is to make the excuse that you’re under pressure,” he added. “Everyone, whether in archeology or not, is under pressure these days.”

Fujimura never attended college or received an advanced degree. After graduating from high school in Sendai in the late 1960s, he took a job at a company that made measuring instruments. After laboring away for several years at a humdrum job, he saw an exhibition of stoneware from Miyagi prefecture in 1972 that changed his life. Bitten by the bug, he started studying archeology on his own at night and on weekends. Late in 1972, he got his first job on a dig, shoveling dirt.

His big break came in 1981 when he was credited with unearthing stoneware pieces believed to be more than 40,000 years old at the Zazaragi ruins in Miyagi prefecture. At the time, these were the oldest relics discovered in Japan.

As his fame grew, his discoveries of stone artifacts, shells, animal bones and stone tools pushed back the purported origin of Japanese civilization. By 1993, findings at the Tsukidate site placed the dawn of Japanese culture at 400,000 years ago. Subsequent discoveries credited to him pushed the date back to 700,000 years.

Fujimura could not be reached this week for comment, but colleagues describe him as a rough man with a deep passion. Junichi Nagasaki, an archeologist with Sapporo International University, who has known him for 15 years, said Fujimura has rather unsophisticated manners and speaks with a strong regional accent.

“He’s rather quiet, but when we drink together he would talk a lot more, especially about his passion for archeology and making discoveries,” Nagasaki said. “He always worked very hard, even on the weekends, trying to sharpen his intuition in the field.”

Over the years, Fujimura won numerous honors, including Japan’s prestigious Tadahiro Aizawa archeology award in 1992 and the Saitama province Governor’s Award last year. Yet colleagues say he would bristle at the suggestion that he was lucky, preferring to chalk up his legendary career to skill and diligence.

As an outsider not affiliated with any university, funding was always a problem, even as his reputation grew. Increasingly, Fujimura came to rely on local governments intent on creating tourist attractions. And as archeology became increasingly popular in the 1990s, more newcomers started digging, which increased pressure to come up with even more spectacular discoveries.

Ultimately, the most lasting impression of the man with the mythical touch may be the long-standing damage he’s done to Japan’s scientific reputation.

“We’re talking about the origins of Japan here,” said Yoshiaki Tanaka, retired archeology professor at Shimane University in Matsue. “It’s that important. This is criminal and can never be forgiven.”

*

Rie Sasaki and Makiko Inoue of The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.