The Netherlands restore a “Java Man”, thousands of excavations in the colonial era are taken from Indonesia

The Dutch government agreed to return thousands of excavations to Indonesia from a world -famous group, after a committee ruled to remove it in the colonial era “against the will of the people”, the Ministry of Education announced on Friday.

The historical importance group known as the Dubois group includes a piece of skull discovered from the Solo River on Java Island, which is the first homo erection evidence, which is generally considered in advance of our types of our genus. Fossils are often referred to as “Java Man”.

The decision to return more than 28,000 fossils to Indonesia is the latest work to recover by the Dutch art government and artifacts that it has often – by force – from countries around the world in colonial times.

Pregnant women were drilled in the late nineteenth century by the anatomical and geologist Eugene Dubua, when the current Indonesia was the Netherlands colony.

After intense research, the Dutch colonial groups committee concluded that “the conditions under which excavations were obtained means that they are likely to be removed against the will of the people, which led to the appearance of injustice against them.”

The fossils retained the spiritual and economic value of the locals, who were forced to detect fossil sites.

The Minister of Education, Culture and Science Gouke Mes concluded the agreement on Friday with his Indonesian counterpart Fadli Zon at the Naturalis Museum in Leiden, where the group is currently located.

“The committee’s advice is based on extensive and comprehensive research,” Moss said in a statement. “We will apply the same level of accuracy in working with Naturalis and our Indonesian partners to ensure the continuation of transportation smoothly. Indonesia and the Netherlands believe it is important for the group to remain a source of scientific research.”

Also Friday, the President of Indonesia, Praboo Sobanto, met the Dutch king William Alexander and Queen Maxima at their palace in The Hague.

Homo Erectus grew up in Africa about two million years ago and spread widely there and in Asia, and perhaps to Europe.

It has arrived in Java more than 1.5 million years ago, and dating techniques suggest that she faded at least 35,000 years before our types arrived, homo Sapiens.

The stolen artifacts return home

This is not the first time that the Netherlands restore the artifacts or things that were stolen during its colonial past. In 2023, hundreds of things returned to Indonesia and Sri Lanka, and returned more to Indonesia again in 2024, including four Buddhist Hindu sculptures.

Some other western countries restore the plundering artifacts and other things as part of an account with their brutal colonial history often. Earlier this month, Madagascar obtained three skulls of the original warriors who returned from France, including one of them believed to be a king killed by French forces 128 years ago. The re -repetition is the first use of French law 2023, which regulates the return of human remains to its previous colonies.

In recent years, a museum in Berlin announced that it is ready to restore hundreds of human skulls from the former German colony in East Africa, and Belgium has returned gold -wrapped teeth belonging to the Congolese congregation champion Patrice Lumumba. France said it was also returned statues, thrones and holy massacres taken from the nation of Benin in West Africa.

Although the return efforts to the homeland have increased in Canada, there is no federal legislation that facilitates the restoration of the homeland from Canada’s museums.

Restoring usually occurs on the basis of each case separately in Canadian museums. The Royal Ontario Museum, the largest museum in Canada, Property returned From the commander of the plains in the nineteenth century to his descendants in 2023.

A government survey published in 2019 found that there are approximately 6.7 million pieces of original cultural artifacts in Canadian museums and an estimated 2,500 residue of grandparents.

Meanwhile, the groups of the indigenous population inside Canada were fighting for the return of artifacts and human residues that the colonists transferred to Europe.

The federal government reached an agreement with the National Museum of Scotland in 2019 to restore the remains of the Butok husband and wife, which was carried out by the graves of the Canadian Scottish explorer in the 1920s. The same museum returns Memorial pole He belongs to Nisga’a Nation members in the northwest of British Columbia in 2023, after its presentation nearly a century ago.