ICOM International Council of Museums - Museo Estancia Jesuitica ...

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The Ethics of Museums, The case of the
Japanese “Early Paleolithic hoax”
Yoshiaki Kanayama 1 – Japan
The earlist Japanese stone tools were found at the site of Kami-Takamori in Miyagi
Prefecture, and dated 500,000BCE. Over the years, 1976 to 2000, FUJIMURA Shinichi
discovered more than 30 Early Paleolithic sites including the one above. But on
November 5 th 2000, the Mainichi Shinbun, a Japanese newspaper, reported having
watched FUJIMURA planting Jomon-era stone tools at Kami-Takamori. This is what
has come to be known as the Japanese “Early Paleolithic hoax”. With this hoax,
Japanese Archaeology lost its good name.
What is the hoax affect on our museums?
There were three types of ways in which the museums treated the exhibition of these
early Paleolithic tools and pictures, before admitting the truth more than five years later.
The first, the special exhibition displayed by about ten museums, Edo-Tokyo Museum
etc, all over Japan, governed by the Agency for Cultural Affairs from 1995 to 2000.
These took an active part in familiarizing the artifacts to society. The second, the
Tohoku History Museum, founded and administrated by Miyagi prefecture, proudly,
showed artifacts found in that prefecture. They were intimately involved with the
archeologist and the ‘hoax team’. The third were the national museums, Tokyo National
Museum and National Museum of Japanese History, were unknowingly displaying the
artifact as legitimate findings.
After exposing the hoax in news paper reports, two National museums immediately
removed all the artifacts from their exhibitions without almost any explanation at all. One
of them said; “we had some doubts so we have removed the exhibition”. But I think that
they should have added an explanation hinting for the truth to be known. People had not
gotten the opportunity to observe these tools whether they were real or not.
The Japanese Archaeological Society that started to verify the problem of “the Early
Paleolithic hoax” to its members in June 2001, in May 2003, reported that all sites
admitted, and all sites excavated by FUJIMURA were, indeed, fake. And Japanese
archeologists reported their conclusions at the Society for American Archaeology in
April 2004.
But there is still a lot of disinformation claiming the artifacts to be real, in book form and
on the web.
Nothing is being done to correct this. I’m afraid people may remember the artifacts as
real in future. Even though, none of the museums have tried to re-display any of the
artifacts to clear matters up or spread information to the public. They have an obligation
to inform the public about the truth.
There is a reason museums must be treated as institutions of education. Museums
have a favorable position unlike the other institutions, to spread information to people
about the material things in exhibitions, in daily life. Museums should not forget this fact
at the expense of future generation.
To take part, museum can display the history of the hoax, the fabricated stone tools,
the pictures of these sites etc. And we should not avoid explaining why archeologists
admitted those tools at sites, the manifest of the archeological committee has to avoid
letting it happen twice. Museums must transmit, to the next generation, the lessons
learned from the hoax. They have to regain any trust, lost by the public, by exposing
any distorted ethics. So that the truth will be known.
1 Hosei University.