Reaction
It was widely reported in the foreign media that the revelation of Fujimura's duplicity shook Japanese lower and middle paleolithic research to its core, as much of it had been built on the foundation Fujimura had laid. It was also reported that prior to discovery of the hoax, Japan's paleolithic period was thought to have started earlier than anywhere else in Asia at around 700,000 BCE.
It is clear that a number of the artifacts found by Fujimura are rather unnatural and do not make archaeological sense, such as those exhumed from pyroclastic flow strata, but nonetheless majority archaeological groups as well as local and government organisations which substantially benefited from his find ignored these inconsistencies. There were also "finds" that were quite difficult to believe, such as stone implements in which the cross sections happened to match those of items found at sites tens of kilometers away. There was sharp criticism that such flawed items should not have been blindly accepted for so long.
Immediately after the hoax was discovered, the Japanese Archaeological Association formed a special committee which spent two and a half years reviewing the incident, releasing a report in May 2003 concluding that Fujimura's work was indeed the product of a hoax and admitting that, aside from few exception, majority fail at pointing inconsistencies of Fujimura's finds.
Read more about this topic: Japanese Paleolithic Hoax
Famous quotes containing the word reaction:
“In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means; only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“More and more, when faced with the world of men, the only reaction is one of individualism. Man alone is an end unto himself. Everything one tries to do for the common good ends in failure.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)