REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, TULUNGAGUNG -- A paleontologist from the Bandung Museum of Geology has said that a lot of Indonesian pre-historic human fossils are kept in a number of museums in the Netherlands.

"Almost all pre-historic human fossils discovered are there (the Netherlands). The government has already made efforts to take them back, but has not been successful so far," the paleontologist, Iwan Kurniawan, said here on Saturday on the sidelines of excavation of the Wajak-2 site in the village of Gamping, Tulungagung, Central Java.

He did not tell the exact number of the fossils which are kept in the Netherlands, especially at Leiden University.

He only said that the number was big and that the fossils come from various pre-historic sites in the country, including Lidah Air, Padang (Sumatra), Java, Flores, Sulawesi and others.

"It is unaccountable. Imagine almost 60 percent of the pre-historic human fossils coming from Indonesia and they are all kept in museums abroad," he stated.

Although it is very difficult, Iwan is still optimistic that the chance to take back these treasures is still there, citing an example of the Greek case where that country's government was able to take back a pre-historic human fossil from the Netherlands due to cooperation and cultural diplomatic efforts.

"If Indonesia is not able to take them back it is because high-level diplomacy is indeed needed for it. Academicians cannot do it by themselves. A high-level communication is needed and that is what we continue to strive for," he said.

Iwan admitted that paleontology and archeology management in the Netherlands is indeed very good and far above that of Indonesia, where it has often faced budgetary and infrastructure problems.

As an example he referred to the well documented Wajakensis Homo fossil from Tulungagung, Homo Mojokertensis from Mojokerto (East Java), pithecanthropus erectus from Trinil, Ngawi, Central Java, meganthropus paleojavanicus and other homo sapiens in the Netherlands.

"Due to the good documentation of fossils to documents produced from research by many Indonesian researchers, we can study them and conduct further research for the advancement of science in the country," he said.

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