For nearly 30 years, Shinichi Fujimura happened to be in exactly the right place at just the right time. He unearthed stone tools that offered a vast new treasure-trove of data about Japan’s middle Palaeolithic age. Other finds were dated to 100,000 years ago.

But a full-scale investigation by the Japanese Archaeological Association has confirmed the worst - that Mr Fujimura , 53, was committing fraud on a vast scale.

He entirely fabricated his astonishing finds at 159 of the 178 sites he worked on, it concluded.

Mr Fujimura’s career began to unravel after he was photographed by a Japanese newspaper journalist removing stone implements from a plastic bag and burying them at one set of ruins.

Admitting only that he was "tempted", he entered a hospital for treatment for stress, then subsequently admitted faking discoveries at 42 digs.

Even now the extent of the deception is unclear...