The ‘Java Man’, the first fossil evidence of Homo erectus, is now home
The iconic Homo erectus fossil was welcomed home with a repatriation ceremony and a new museum exhibit in Jakarta.
Jakarta, Indonesia — More than 130 years since its discovery in East Java, one of the most influential fossils in human history has finally returned home to Indonesia. The specimen, known as Java Man, transformed our understanding of own species and our ancient relatives. On December 17, through a repatriation agreement between the Netherlands and Indonesia, the fossil finished its long journey to the National Museum in Jakarta.
“For too long over a century, a significant part of our past held beyond everyday reach of Indonesian society. Scholars discussed it, museums display it, global narrative was shaped around it, yet the Indonesian people especially younger generation could not see them at home. That era ends today,” said Fadli Zon, Indonesia’s Minister of Culture in a speech delivered later that afternoon.
Excavated in 1891 by Dutch paleontologist Eugene Dubois, Java Man was later identified as a member of the early human species Homo erectus and spent decades in the collection of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, the Netherlands. “The Java Man made headlines around the world in the 19th century and it is making headlines again today,” says Marcel Baukenbaum, the director of Naturalis.
The ancient human skeleton is just one of 28,000 fossils unearthed by Dubois in Indonesia between 1895 to 1920 that the Dutch government committed to repatriating back to their home country back in October—what Zon calls “the biggest repatriation project in the world.”
Celebrating Java Man’s return
On that bright December morning of the repatriation, Baukenbaum carried the fossils in a sealed black suitcase from the Dutch embassy to the museum. At the front gate, he was warmly welcomed by Indira Esti Nurjadin, the director of Indonesia’s Heritage Agency who governed the National Museum. Surrounded by schoolchildren and journalists with cameras, they entered the museum, passed the Buddhist stone statues to the giant hall of Indonesia’s ethnic map, and then took a left turn and entered the new cave-like exhibition area called “Early History.”
There, Nurjadin and her team had prepared a special room for the Java Man, at the center of the exhibit and surrounded by a replica of the world’s oldest cave paintings and other important H. erectus fossils. “We want to prove that we are not receiving them only to be stored in hidden storage, but we are more than ready to make it part of our exhibition,” Nurjadin tells National Geographic.
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In front of the Java Man room, Baukenbaum placed the black suitcase on a white table and opened it. There it was: a skullcap, a femur, a molar, and a shell with a zigzag mark that scientists believed to be crafted by H.erectus.
“It’s all yours now,” says Baukenbaum to Nurjadin.
“Well, it has always been yours,” says Marc Gerritsen, the Netherlands’ ambassador for Indonesia, who also attended the fossil unboxing.
Nurjadin smiled wide and called in the museum’s prehistoric curator, a paleoanthropologist named Budiman, to take the fossils to the place of honor. After a century away, it took less than an hour for Budiman and his team to get Java Man settled and ready to greet museum visitors.
Later in the day, the museum performed a “ruwatan,” a Javanese sacred ritual that symbolizes Indonesia’s good intention in welcoming the specimens. Inside the Java Man exhibit room, three men in Javanese traditional clothing chanted prayers and delivered food offerings. Smoke dispersed from the burning of aromatic incense sticks, emanating sacredness around it.
(Read more about Java Man’s discovery and repatriation.)
A broader effort to de-colonize science
Zon sees the Netherland’s move to repatriate the Dubois collection as a decision made on principles. “In receiving this return, we do not seek to re-open wounds, we seek to heal, we seek to build the future where historical accountability strengthens mutual respect,” he said in his speech.
Indeed, says Baukenbaum, there has been growing awareness among his colleagues at the Naturalis about the issue of repatriating natural history objects as part of “correcting colonial past.” From moment the countries’ two ministers of culture signed the repatriation agreement, he says he’s felt the historical weight of the handover.
When Baukenbaum landed in Indonesia, the first person he spoke to was an Indonesian immigration officer who asked him what was inside the suitcase. He told him what it was, and the officer said, “Oh Dubois? I learned about it in school." Most Indonesians know Phitecanthropus erectus, the first latin name of the Java Man. The name sounds funny and catchy, but many Indonesians have never seen the specimen in person. Baukenbaum carried it and the weight of changing history with him to Jakarta. “That makes it special,” he said.
(Are museums celebrating cultural heritage—or clinging to stolen treasure?)
Changing that history is a major challenge. For years, science has focused on European perspectives, and erased the voices and contributions of non-European characters, notes Hilmar Farid, the former director general of culture at the Indonesia’s Ministry of Research, Culture, and Higher Education . In 2022, under his leadership, Indonesia sent the repatriation proposal, initiating investigation by the Colonial Collection Committee in the Netherlands. “The ultimate goal of this repatriation process is to restore epistemic justice that has been neglected for too long,” says Hilmar, who is a historian himself. “The return of this fossil will hopefully create more stories of these characters. Stories about the role of the past and the present Indonesian researchers which actually have been very productive when it comes to H. erectus research in the region.”
(Kenya wants its treasures back. Replicas could spur their return.)
The future of Indonesian archaeology
Cutting edge technologies are waiting to investigate the Dubois collection further. In 2024, Indonesia’s National Agency for Research and Innovation established the Center for Human Evolution, Adaptation, and Dispersal in Southeast Asia. The institute has access to high tech to date archaic specimens, and has sterile labs to extract protein and DNA. With these tools at the ready, local archaeologists and anthropologists can’t wait for the remaining collections to arrive in Indonesia (likely in the first quarter of 2026). “I only had a few days to access the shell art when it was still in Leiden. Now, we have forever to access them,” says Anton Ferdianto, an archaeologist at BRIN who attended the ceremony .
It may take years to realize the legacy of the specimens’ return. Minutes before Java-Man’s historic arrival, hundreds of schoolchildren lined up at the front gate for a museum visit. They were not aware that soon Java Man and thousands of other fossils would tell them stories of the earliest residents of their motherland, stories that were never heard by their earlier generations.
Zon sees this as Indonesia’s chance to contribute to global scientific narratives. “What we witnessed today speaks to a broader global commitment: to place ethics alongside history and partnership alongside knowledge. This signals a forward-looking post-colonial approach where research continues here at its origin and where Indonesian communities are recognized as primary stakeholders in the heritage of our own past.”
