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International - Misconduct Cases
Archaeologist Photographed Salting Excavation Site
Volume 9, No. 2, March 2001
Archaeologists in Japan were shaken recently when
photographs of a noted amateur archaeologist planting artifacts
in an excavation site were published on the front page of a leading
national daily, according to Science.
Reporters from the newspaper had been tracking Shinichi
Fujimura for 6 months because of rumors about the veracity of his
earlier discoveries. At a subsequent news conference, Fujimura confessed
to planting artifacts at one other site, but colleagues are questioning
all of his work, which includes 33 excavations directly and extends
to 160 other efforts.
The misconduct raised questions about the practice
of archaeology in Japan where competition supposedly has allowed
press conferences to take precedence over publications in announcing
discoveries which are subjected to little critical review or scholarly
debate before or after their announcement.
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