Netherlands to Return Fossils to Indonesia
The Netherlands announced on Friday that it will return a collection of thousands of fossils to Indonesia. The collection consists of over 28,000 fossils, including some of the so-called "Java Man" bones. These are the first known fossils of Homo erectus, an ancestor of the Homo sapiens type.
The Dubois Collection
The fossils that were soon called up are known as the Dubois collection, named after the Dutch anthropologist Eugene Dubois. In 1891, Dubois extracted the fossils from Indonesia, in which the country was a Dutch colony. The part of the "Java Man" collection is viewed as the first fossils that have ever shown on the left between monkeys and humans. It often gets this name because its discovery was made on the Indonesian island of Java.
Importance of the Fossils
"This collection is an important resource for researching human evolution," said the Dutch government. The announcement on Friday, after the Dutch independent Colonial Collections has found that "the circumstances under which the fossils were preserved" came to the conclusion that "it is likely that they were removed against the will of the people, which led to an injustice against them". It was recommended to attribute the fossils to Indonesia.
Fossils of Spiritual and Economic Importance
"Fossils were of spiritual and economic importance for the local population," said the Dutch Ministry of Culture. A handover ceremony was held in Leiden, where Dutch Minister of Culture Gouke Moes and his Indonesian counterpart Fadli Zon took part.
Previous Returns
This is not the first case with Indonesia, which two years ago received more than 200 backed items from the Netherlands. Indonesia became independent of the Netherlands in August 1945. The Netherlands had occupied the Southeast Asian archipelago for three centuries and did not accept the independence of the territory after four years of 1949.
Netherlands’ Expectations
This is the sixth time that the Netherlands have returned objects on the basis of the recommendations of the Dutch committee for the colonial collection collection. The Dubois collection is the latest example. However, the Netherlands have gradually returned other pieces that were once received from former colonies. At the beginning of this year, the Dutch government returned to Nigeria, for example, 113 of the old Benin Bronzes collection.
