Ancient skull makes long journey back to Indonesia

By Sri Wahyuni

YOGYAKARTA (JP): A prehuman skull, found in the unlikely setting of a cozy antique shop on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York, was returned to its place of origin in Indonesia earlier this month.

Much credit goes to senior bioanthropologist Teuku Jacob of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, for bringing about the return of the priceless fossil that could yield important new information about human evolution.

"It took me months before I could bring the skull home," Jacob told The Jakarta Post. He said the skull was now the subject of research by the university's bioanthropology and paleoanthropology laboratory which he chairs.

The skull was reportedly obtained by Columbus Avenue antiques shop Maxilla and Mandible Ltd. from an unknown man in March. It quickly became news among anthropologists in the U.S.

Jacob heard about the skull through his contacts with other anthropologists around the world.

"I was embarrassed ... I've been campaigning against fossil trading since 1962 and yet it's still happening."

Jacob said he knew of the whereabouts of the skull when it was still in Indonesia. The fossil -- a nearly complete cranium which is missing the upper and lower jaws -- was found in the Central Java village of Sambungmacan, Sragen, in 1997.

Bioanthropologist Budi Hartono of the University of Indonesia conducted research on the skull and presented his conclusions in a seminar in the Central Java town of Surakarta in 1998.

"I don't know exactly how the skull got there (in New York) but it must have been through a complicated and untraceable route," Jacob said.

As an experienced anthropologist, he said he was moved to ensure the return of the skull from the foreign antiques shop. It was not his first experience in reclaiming Indonesian fossils; in 1975 he succeeded in bringing back dozens of prehuman fossils from Germany. He returned Indonesian child fossil skulls, aged about 1.8 million years, also from Germany three years later.

Through his network of contacts he asked for a slide of the skull on display at Columbus Avenue. The skull pictured on the slide matched the description of Budi Hartono.

Jacob said a Japanese colleague suggested a way to bring the skull back to Indonesia. The Japanese would buy the skull from the shop, keep it in a Japanese museum for 20 years and then send it back to Indonesia.

"Of course, I don't have 20 years," said the 70-year-old former rector of Gadjah Mada University.

With the support of the Directorate General of Culture of the Ministry of Education and Culture and the cultural attache of the Indonesian Embassy in New York, and after dozens of facsimile and e-mail messages had been sent, he succeeded.

"Henry Galiano, the shop owner, was eventually willing to give it for free." The handover ceremony was held at the shop on Aug. 30, 1999.

Fossil smuggling is a lucrative business. The middleman and the trader, like the one in New York, could make a lot of money. They buy the fossil from the digger, usually villagers and farmers, for only a few dollars.

Jacob refused to say how much the skull would have cost on the international market, but The New York Times reported that the skull might have commanded a price up to US$500,000.

Anthropologists agree that the skull could be critical in determining the place of Homo erectus in Asia to reconstruct the human family tree. It could shed important information on where and how modern humans evolved.

The skull, Jacob said, could be a missing link between Homo erectus erectus and Homo erectus soloensis, two important species known in the study of the development of Homo erectus.

"Its morphology is more developed compared to that of Homo erectus erectus but not as developed as that of Homo erectus soloensis."

Anthropologists generally divide the lineage of Homo erectus into three species. Homo erectus robustus, the oldest straight walking "monkey", Homo erectus erectus whose fossils have been predominantly found in the central Java villages of Trinil and Sangiran, and Homo erectus soloensis whose fossils have been found in the villages of Ngandong and Sambungmacan, also in Central Java. Homo erectus lived from 200,000 to two million years ago.

Human evolution is also marked by three successive species, namely Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. Asia, especially Indonesia and China, are seen as important places in the study of Homo erectus as the species' fossils are mostly found in the two countries.

Jacob said that the dark gray skull returned from New York may belong to a young male. The thickness and the roughness of certain points on the skull, which indicate the individual's muscle development, are the main clues to its sex. The clearly defined sutures in the man was young.

Volume of the brain, according to Jacob, was about 450 cc, obviously much smaller than that of Homo sapiens but still within the range of Homo erectus. Yet, he had a human-like forehead, which is high and not sloping like that of Homo erectus.

The shape of the skull, Jacob added, suggested that Homo erectus was developing the potential for language and speech.

"I'm not saying that he could speak like us. I'd rather call it a pre-lingua or an early language." He added that the individual would have still needed to use bodily signs, including head and hand movements, in order to communicate.