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Creative Pranks and Hoaxes in History

Khalid Elhassan February 2, 2020 33 min

4. Hoaxing a Nation

A Japanese statue from the Jomon Period. Wikimedia

Hard to imagine, but some countries – or at least one country – have a national passion for archaeology: Japan. There, archaeology is particularly popular with the general public. The Japanese people revel in their country’s uniqueness and exhibit greater fascination with their prehistory than any other people do about theirs.

New archaeological finds are frequently announced in bold headlines on the front pages of leading Japanese newspapers, and bookshops have entire sections devoted to Stone Age Japan. In that environment, self-taught archaeologist Shinichi Fujimura became a national celebrity, and his findings were incorporated into school textbooks and taught to Japanese children for years. Unfortunately, his archaeological discoveries were nothing but a string of hoaxes.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.