TOKYO -- Shinichi Fujimura was a superstar in the world of Japanese archaeology. His uncanny ability to make surprising finds earned him the nickname "The Hand of God" and came to define how history books would portray Japan's distant past.

That history is now being rewritten.

Since Fujimura was caught red-handed and confessed last year that he planted many of his finds, textbooks have been revised, artifacts quietly removed from the National Museum, and theories on Japan's earliest humans reconsidered.

The Fujimura affair, among the worst cases of academic fraud ever in Japan, exposed fundamental problems with the way archaeology is conducted here. And in a country where finds are frequently front-page news, the damage to its reputation may be irreparable.

"It will take a considerable amount of energy for Japanese archaeology to recover," said Toshiaki Kamata, chairman of the Tohoku Paleolithic Institute, which Fujimura helped found. "Such a mistake cannot be erased, even after decades."

Archaeology is particularly vulnerable to fakes.

Unlike the experimental sciences, claims by researchers cannot easily be tested by others, said Kenneth Feder, a member of the anthropology department at Central Connecticut State University who wrote a book on scientific fraud.

"Each site is a unique thing, and once it's excavated, it's gone," he said. "It's lost."

The extent to which Fujimura was able to deceive Japan's archaeological establishment underscores some unique weaknesses -- including a lack of peer review in Japanese academia and a nationalistic focus that might have played in Fujimura's favor.

Fujimura, 51, who worked at an electronics maker until quitting in 1999, began studying archaeology on his own after he graduated from high school. He did not attend college, colleagues said.

According to some who knew him, he was a driven man and prone to bombast.

He seemed to have much to brag about.

Fujimura's discoveries included a stone implement that he estimated at more than 40,000 years old -- more than 10,000 years older than any previous finds in Japan. Later, he found stone tools that he dated to about 600,000 years ago, including some arranged in caches showing an unparalleled level of early human symbolic cognition.

"If correct, the evidence ... could have rewritten our textbooks on human evolution," wrote Charles Keally, an archaeologist at Sophia University, in a report on the scandal for the Society for East Asian Archaeology.

Many textbooks were, in fact, rewritten to include Fujimura's finds.

The deception was uncovered last fall when a reporter for a major newspaper heard whispers of doubt over Fujimura's unbelievable luck and secretly videotaped him burying tools at a site in northern Japan, then pounding the earth down on top of them with his foot.

Fujimura is believed to have planted 65 stone artifacts at Kamitakamori, including scrapers and pointed tools, Kamata said. He has also admitted to planting additional tools at a dig at Soshinfudosaka on Hokkaido island.

While many experts believe it is very likely that humans crossed land bridges from the Asian mainland into northern Japan much earlier than can yet be proven, they have little evidence other than what Fujimura found.

"We seem to be back to zero on this question of humans in Japan before 35,000 years ago," concluded Keally, who has worked in Japan for 30 years.

How could Japan's archaeologists be so gullible?

"We tend to accept what the person who did the excavation says, and it is difficult to criticize unless you have a strong case," said Ken Amakasu, chairman of the Japanese Archaeological Association.

That appears to hold true even when the discoverer is an amateur like Fujimura. Amateurs are heavily involved in archaeology in Japan, with notable finds to their credit, said Fumiko Ikawa-Smith of McGill University in Montreal.

Japan is not alone in this regard. Western archaeology, too, once depended heavily on amateurs, men such as businessman Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered the ancient city of Troy.

Japanese nationalism also may have had a role.

Amakasu acknowledged that archaeology in Japan, where people were taught they were a unique race until the end of World War II, is largely expected to reinforce a sense of national identity rather than uncover the history of humankind.

Fujimura fed into that by telling people what they wanted to hear about the depth and importance of Japanese history and widely publicizing his findings, Keally said.

The hierarchical world of academia in Japan also works against critical analysis of findings. Powerful professors carve out study areas, form cliques, and are essentially free to do as they please. Unlike in the West, there is no peer review of a scholar's findings because star scholars oppose it.

All that helped Fujimura keep his fraud going as long as he did.

The profession is moving to strengthen standards. Amakasu said a committee was established to review the sites and finds that Fujimura was involved with. The association also plans to discuss the methodology of what is still a closed field.

Amakasu hopes to broaden archaeologists' perspective by encouraging them to talk with each other more, by fostering more international exchanges and improving communication with researchers in related fields, such as geology.

Fujimura apologized profusely at a news conference immediately after the scandal broke, saying he gave into temptation and the pressure to succeed. He has since dropped from view. His colleague at the institute, Kamata, said he was in a mental hospital.

There are no grounds for criminal charges, and the archaeological association has no grounds for a lawsuit because there was no financial damage or defamation, Amakasu said.

"You get rewarded in archaeology and other fields for big discoveries. The oldest,' The first,'" said Deborah Nichols, a professor at Dartmouth College and chairwoman of the archaeology division of the American Anthropological Association. "Those kinds of pressures may be partly what underlies when someone does something like that."