The World’s Most Impressive Fakes, Forgeries, and Finds that Made History

Fake Stone Age Discoveries

Shinichi Fujimura’s fame and prestige in Japan were quite high by the early 1990s. They reached stratospheric levels in 1993, when he discovered stone age evidence of humans near the village of Tsukidate, which dated back over half a million years. At a stroke, Japan became the equal of its rival, China, in the antiquity scale. So fortunate did Fujimura seem in his ability to unearth objects that few other archaeologists could find, that admirers began to refer to the seemingly divinely guided Fujimura as “God’s Hands”.

His skills seemed too good to be true – and things too good to be true usually are. Such was the case with Fujimura: his discoveries were fake. In 2000, Japan was rocked when a newspaper published photographs in which the respected and celebrated archaeologist planted “ancient” stone age tools at a dig site. Forced to confess after he was caught red handed, he admitted that he had planted evidence throughout his entire career. When asked why he did that, Fujimura tearfully responded “the devil made me do it“.