“Java Man” Fossils Returned to Indonesia

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS—The Homo erectus fossils known as “Java Man” have been returned to Indonesia, where they will be housed at the National Museum of Indonesia in Jakarta, according to an Arab News report. The skullcap, molar, and thigh bone, now thought to have come from different individuals, are a few of the 30,000 fossils and objects collected by Dutch researcher Eugène Dubois at the Bengawan Solo River on the island of Java some 130 years ago, during the period of Dutch colonial rule of Indonesia. Dubois sent the fossils and artifacts to The Netherlands, where they were housed at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden. Indonesia first requested the return of the Dubois Collection in 1949, after gaining independence from Dutch rule. In 2020, a Dutch government advisory committee recommended restitution of the objects, stating that the fossils were likely removed against the will of the people, who had been coerced into revealing fossil sites. “This fossil bears witness to an important link in human evolution, while also representing part of Indonesian history and cultural heritage,” said Marcel Beukeboom, general director of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center. Indonesian scientists studying human evolution in Asia will now be able to compare the repatriated Java fossils with others they have found on the islands of Sumatra and Sulawesi. To read about a stone monument built some 2,000 years ago on the island of Java, go to "Java's Megalithic Mountain."