preface
In the long river of world history, the cultural history of various countries is very holy, and archaeologists should strictly pursue objective facts, but some archaeologists will also study and investigate history with their own selfish intentions.
And such a person may also have a certain voice and influence in the archaeological community, today we will talk about the archaeological fraud incident that shocked the people of Japan at that time, the protagonist is an amateur archaeologist Shinichi Fujimura who has not published any academic papers.
Shinichi Fujimura
The farce that happens
This farce also starts from the protagonist of the incident, Fujimura Shinichi, who was only a small clerk of a Japanese company at the beginning, liked to collect some stone tools on weekdays, and was keen to participate in some activities in the Japanese archaeological community, although Fujimura Shinichi only had a high school education, and did not have any knowledge reserves in the archaeological community and had not published academic papers, but he was sociable, and always invited archaeologists to dinner in the archaeological community to win their favor and trust.
Fast forward to early October 1981, the first time Fujimura Shinichi had dug up Paleolithic tools from the surface, which was about 40,000 years ago.
At that time, Fujimura Shinichi followed archaeologists to the "Scattered Wood Ruins" in Iwateyama Town, Miyagi Prefecture, and excavated together, because there are few records of the Stone Age in Japan, and archaeologists generally have to investigate the site.
If stone tools can be found in this site, it proves that Japan existed in the middle stone age.
After arriving at the scene, archaeologists have begun to search, Fujimura Shinichi is the same, not long after Fujimura Shinichi really dug out a small stone tool, and after expert identification found that this is the middle era of stone tools, everyone was happy, and then Fujimura Shinichi successively found 48 stone tools in various parts of the site.
The appearance of these stone tools has also made the Japanese government and the masses very excited, so as to prove that there were traces of humans in Japan at least 40,000 years ago, which is an important step in Japan's stone tool history.
Human beings are full of curiosity about the fogs of history, and Japan is certainly no exception, at that time people asked whether there were stone tools of the old era since there were stone tools in the middle era.
Here to popularize the Stone Age with you, as the name suggests, stone tools are tools made of stone, and the Stone Age can be divided into three eras, namely the Paleolithic Age, the Mesolithic Age and the Paleolithic Age.
However, the Mesolithic period is the transition period from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic, and in 1865 British scientists proposed the concept of Neolithic and Paleolithic stone tools, and the criterion for distinguishing these two eras is whether they made stone tools or grinding stone tools.
Let's go back to the counterfeiting incident of Fujimura Shinichi, in 1984, Fujimura Shinichi found Paleolithic tools in the 170,000-year-old ruins, which made Fujimura Shinichi famous, after all, the authoritative archaeologists at that time did not find the corresponding Paleolithic tools from the site, and Fujimura Shinichi could draw a strong stroke on the Paleolithic Age in Japan without blowing the dust.
After that, Fujimura Shinichi stopped working at the company and began to spend all his energy and time searching for stone tools, which were located at the site of the Kami-Takamori site in his hometown of Miyagi Prefecture.
In August 1992, Fujimura Shinichi discovered Paleolithic tools on a hill called pasture meadow, and the Japanese people cheered again, and then Fujimura Shinichi excavated a stone tool from 400,000 years ago.
In November 1994, Fujimura Shinichi excavated a stone tool from 500,000 years ago, in October 1995 Fujimura Shinichi discovered another stone tool from 600,000 years old, and in 1998 Fujimura Shinichi excavated another stone tool from 600,000 years ago.
In November 1999, Fujimura Shinichi excavated stone tools that were 700,000 years old, and everyone basically excavated a stone tool that was 100,000 years earlier than before every year from the time of excavation.
Ruins of Upper Gaussen
Perhaps everyone is not so sensitive and strong to the senses of these data, for example, the most familiar example, the earliest Beijing Zhoukou man site in China also existed for 700,000 years, and Japan did not find these stone tools, the earliest ancient humans appeared only 40,000 years ago.
The Japanese government and the masses at the time were shocked to think that these stone tools could represent the history of stone tools in Japan, and the discovery of these stone tools could also prove that ancient humans appeared in Japan long ago, just like the Zhoukou people in Beijing in China.
But as everyone knows, this is just a huge conspiracy of Shinichi Fujimura, but before this conspiracy was discovered, the Japanese government also rewrote the local history textbook, the purpose of which is to publicize Japan's long history and culture, but also to show off its country's discovery to the world.
See here must be everyone has doubts, understand the archaeology may know that archaeology is a very lengthy process, these stone tools or relics left by ancient people with the changes of the times and the precipitation of time, more and more sinking in the soil, but Fujimura Shinichi excavation speed in the archaeological community seems to be very frequent, but also by the masses to the sky, known as "god hand" "stone tool excavation god", and the excavated stone tools do not have a special amount of dirt, plus the archaeological team every time with Fujimura Shinichi to find, However, only Fujimura Shinichi has ever found a stone tool, which has also been questioned by some archaeologists at the time.
But most archaeologists only say that Fujimura Shinichi is lucky, and the discovery of stone tools from 700,000 years ago means that Japan's history has extended forward by 700,000 years, and it has made up for the gap in Japanese history in ancient times.
Later, under the influence of interests, Fujimura Shinichi even threatened to find stone tools dating back 1 million years immediately, and the Japanese people were even more excited when this statement came out, believing that Fujimura Shinichi was like a "savior" given by God, and if Fujimura Shinichi's remarks were true, then the world's earliest culture would appear in Japan.
The result of a farce
But on October 22, 2000, when the truth of the matter surfaced, a familiar figure at the archaeological office of the Obergaosen site ran in at lightning speed, and when he came in, he looked around, found no one, and pulled out a small shovel and a bag of unknown objects in plastic bags.
After a while, he began to dig holes in the ground, then put the contents of the plastic bag in, buried the soil flat, and then quickly left the scene.
So who is this person? What did he bury at the site?
This person is Fujimura Shinichi, and he buried the stone tools that all archaeologists are "looking for", Fujimura Shinichi came to the site the next day without incident, and after digging for a long time, he began to excitedly shout that he had found the stone tools, but unlike before, this time everyone did not cheer, but looked at him with disdain.
At this time, Fujimura Shinichi still did not know what was happening, in fact, as early as the day before the archaeology, some reporters in order to be able to better capture the archaeological whereabouts and methods of this "archeological god" Fujimura Shinichi, etc., installed a camera at the site, and Fujimura Shinichi buried the imitation stone tools made in the soil.
Fujimura Shinichi stone artifact counterfeiting incident
On November 5, a well-known local newspaper published Fujimura Shinichi's counterfeiting process with pictures, and overnight the belief of the Japanese people collapsed, which was nothing more than "murderous heart" for the Japanese masses.
In the subsequent investigation and interrogation of Fujimura Shinichi, the matter was once again difficult to end, which was shocking.
According to Fujimura Shinichi's list of fake sites handed over to the police and archaeologists, there are 42 sites, including the famous "Scattered Wood Ruins" mentioned above.
Later, Japanese archaeologists also set up a special committee to re-examine the sites of Fujimura Shinichi's archaeological activities, and it was not until 2003 that the Japanese Archaeological Society issued a report stating that Fujimura Shinichi had 162 fake sites, and 159 of them had no use value for the Japanese archaeological community and Japanese history and culture.
Japan's history once again went back 40,000 years from 700,000 years ago, and the Japanese government could only delete all the knowledge of these aspects from the history books, and Fujimura Shinichi was later sent to a mental hospital for treatment because of emotional instability, but Fujimura Shinichi's behavior can only be said to be "hateful to people who are handsome."
I think you can see that here is also a mixture of feelings, and fujimura Shinichi's behavior is certainly incomprehensible and spurned, but here I would like to put forward some of my own insights.
Earlier we mentioned that Fujimura Shinichi is only an amateur archaeologist, has no relevant archaeological expertise, but can find old stone tools in a very short period of time.
Although some Japanese archaeologists have questioned it, it has not been taken seriously, and I think it is contrary to the spirit of Japanese craftsmen.
The Japanese craftsman spirit originally meant that Japanese craftsmen were to work hard to improve, and these spirits continued to the professional and rigorous spirit of doing a line of love and a line.
But in the Fujimura Shinichi stone forgery incident, Fujimura Shinichi certainly did not have this spirit, but archaeologists may not all have this spirit, otherwise how could this absurd farce last for nearly 20 years, or even published in history textbooks.
At that time, there were also great problems in determining the existence of stone tools, and the former Fumihata mentioned that Fujimura Shinichi used fake stone tools to fake them, so why can't so many authoritative archaeologists verify the authenticity of stone tools?
stoneware
In this way, there is an archaeologist in the Field of Archaeology in Japan, Nagasuke Serizawa, who is very famous, when he proposed a theory called the layer priority form, which is popularly speaking, the age of the site strata can represent the age of the excavated relics.
But in fact, this theory is a lot of rigorous and scientific, take Fujimura Shinichi fake stone tools as an example, at the beginning Fujimura Shinichi excavated stone tools at the surface of the earth 40,000 years ago, so experts believe that this stone tool is located in the age of 40,000 years ago, but this stone tool or excavated other relics also exist because of the precipitation of time and the migration of geological layers and sink, archaeologists did not conduct further analysis and testing.
Moreover, when archaeologists from the mainland went to Japan for archaeological investigation, they found some rust scratches on the surface of the ten stone blocks in the Upper Takamori site, which is enough to prove that the stone tools excavated in the Upper Takamori site are not stone tools excavated from the Paleolithic period, but Japanese archaeologists still have not found a problem.
It is said that it is unintentional or intentional, but Fujimura Shinichi's counterfeiting incident did hit the national belief and cohesion of the Japanese masses, including after japan also announced that it would not conduct archaeological research again, and Japan this time made people laugh at both its own country and the world.
epilogue
I think the real meaning of historical existence is to inform future generations of their ancestral families and lives, etc., and these things are absolutely true and cannot be changed by objective existence.
Fujimura Shinichi almost extended Japan's history forward by 700,000 years with his own personal strength, but it was a dream of Nanke, but we can also think deeply, after Japan's surrender, the United States controlled Japan for 7 years, from the beginning of the spur to suppress to help Japan develop, and then to Japan to regain its own political power, launched the Tokyo Olympic Games, and the economy took off rapidly.
1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan
In the 1990s, Japan experienced a financial crisis, and the Japanese government may also want to instill the concept of Japan's long history in the Japanese masses through these archaeological achievements, so as to unite the strength of the Japanese masses and regain their self-confidence.
But the truth cannot be changed and erased, just like the harm and humiliation that Japan caused to China before, we will not forget, we will remember it, but we will not hate Japan, because the concept of Chinese has always been like this.
Perhaps in the long river of history in the future, more historical relics will be found in the world, which are the most precious treasures and cultures left by the ancestors of the world stage to future generations.