The Dutch government agreed to return thousands of fossils from a world -famous collection to Indonesia after a commission decided that they were removed in the colonial era “against the will of the people”, the Ministry of Education said on Friday.
The historically significant abundance, which is known as a Dubois collection, contains a skull discovered from the solo flow on the island of Java, which is considered the first fossil evidence of Homo erectus, which is generally regarded as ancestors of our species, Homo sapiens. The fossils are often referred to as “Java Man”.
The decision to return more than 28,000 fossils to Indonesia is the latest act of reimbursement by the Dutch art and artifacts, which – often by force – from countries in the world in colonial period.
The fossils were excavated in the late 19th century by Dutch anatomists and geologists Eugene Dubois when today’s Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands.
After extensive examination, the Dutch Committee for Colonial Collections concluded that “the circumstances under which the fossils were preserved means that they were probably removed against the will of the people, which led to an act of injustice against them.”
Fossils had spiritual and economic value for local people who were forced to uncover fossil sites.
The Minister for Education, Culture and Science -Gouke Moes sealed the Agreement on Friday with its Indonesian counterpart Fadli Zon in the Naturalis Museum in Leiden, where the collection is currently located.
“The committee’s council is based on extensive and thorough research,” said Moes in a statement. “We will use the same level of thoroughness in cooperation with Naturalis and our Indonesian partners to ensure that the transfer runs smoothly. Indonesia and the Netherlands believe that it is important that the collection remains a source of scientific research.”
Also on Friday, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto met Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima in her palace in the Hague.
Homo erectus was created in Africa about two million years ago and spread there and in Asia and possibly in Europe.
It achieved Java more than 1.5 million years ago, and dating techniques indicate that it was triggered at least 35,000 years before the arrival of our own species, Homo sapiens.
Stolen artifacts go home
This is not the first time that the Netherlands have returned artifacts or objects that were stolen during its colonial past. In 2023 it returned hundreds of objects to Indonesia and Sri Lanka and returned to Indonesia in 2024, including four Hindu sculptures.
Some other western nations return looted artifacts and other objects as part of a settlement with their often brutal colonial stories. At the beginning of this month, Madagascar received three skulls indigenous warriors who had returned from France, including one that was assumed that he was killed by French troops 128 years ago. The return was the first use of a French law in 2023, which regulated the return of human remains to its former colonies.
In recent years, a Berlin Museum has announced that it was ready to return hundreds of human skulls from the former German colony of East Africa, and Belgium has returned a gold -packed tooth that belongs to the murdered Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba. France said it was also returning statues, royal throne and holy altars who were taken from the West African nation Benin.
Although the return efforts in Canada have increased, there is still no federal legislation that facilitates the return from the Canadian museums.
The return takes place in Canadian museums from case to case. The Royal Ontario Museum, Canada’s largest museum, returned possessions From a Plains-Cree boss from the 19th century to his descendants in 2023.
A state survey published in 2019 showed that around 6.7 million indigenous cultural artifacts and an estimated 2,500 remnants were present in Canadian museums.
In the meantime, indigenous groups in Canada have fought for the return of artifacts and human remains, which were brought to Europe by colonizers.
The Federal Government achieved an agreement with the National Museum of Scotland in 2019, for the remains of a husband and the wife of Beothuk, whose graves were searched by a Scottish Canadian explorer in the 1820s. A gave the same museum back Memorial recommendation One of the members of the Nisga’a nation in the northwest of British Columbia in 2023 was after almost a century.
