The Netherlands is returning a fossil collection taken from Indonesia in the colonial era

The Hague, Netherlands – The Dutch government has agreed to return thousands of fossils to Indonesia from a world renown collection, after a commission judged that they had been removed from its colonial functions “against the will of the people,” the Ministry of Education announced on Friday.

The historically significant trow known as the Dubois collection includes a piece of discovered skull of the solo river on the island of Java which is considered to be the first fossil proof of Homo Erectus, which is generally considered an ancestor of our species, Homo sapiens. Fossils are often called “Java Man”.

The decision to return more than 28,000 fossils to Indonesia is the last act of restitution by the Dutch government of art and artefacts taken – often by force – countries around the world in the colonial era.

The fossils were searched at the end of the 19th century by the Dutch anatomist and geologist Eugène Dubois, while current Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands.

After in -depth research, the Dutch colonial collections committee concluded that “the circumstances in which the fossils were obtained means that it is likely that they were removed against the will of the people, which leads to an act of injustice against them”. Fossils had a spiritual and economic value for the local population, which were forced to reveal fossil sites.

The Minister of Education, Culture and Sciences Gouke Moes sealed the agreement on Friday with his Indonesian counterpart Fadli Zon at the Naturalis Museum in Leiden where the collection is currently hosted.

“Committee’s advice is based on in -depth and in -depth research,” Mues said in a statement. “We will apply the same level of rigor in work with Naturalis and our Indonesian partners to ensure that the transfer takes place gently. Indonesia and the Netherlands believe that it is important that the collection remains a source of scientific research. ”

Homo Erectus appeared in Africa about 2 million years ago and spread over there and Asia, and perhaps in Europe. He reached Java over 1.5 million years ago, and dating techniques suggest that she died at least 35,000 years before the arrival of our own species, Homo Sapiens.

Some Western nations return from looted artefacts and other objects as part of a calculation with their often brutal colonial stories. Earlier this month, Madagascar received three indigenous warriors’ warriors returned from France, a believer to be a king killed by French troops 128 years ago. The repatriation marked the first use of a French law in 2023 regulating the return of human remains to its former colonies.

In recent years, a museum in Berlin has announced that it was ready to return hundreds of human skulls from the former German colony of East Africa and France said that it was returning from statues, royal thrones and sacred altars drawn from the West African Nation of Benin. Belgium has returned a tooth styled with gold belonging to the hero of Congolese independence killed Patrice Lumumba.