Minister Promotes Indonesia as Source of Early Man
Counter to scientific evidence and consensus Indonesia’s Minister of Culture, Fadli Zon, is promoting a theory that Indonesia’s fossil evidence indicates that homo sapiens species originated in ancient Indonesia(also called Nusantara). The “Out of Nusantara” claim, Fadli said, would counter the long-backed scientific theory that early humans, such as Homo erectus who lived from around 1.9 million years to some 150,000 years ago, originated in Africa, before making their way to Europe and Asia and going extinct in Java. The minister shared his theory not long after the Netherlands agreed to repatriate thousands of fossils looted from Indonesia during the Dutch colonial era. The collec
tion could present “fresh evidence” that would support his sweeping narrative, according to Fadli. “The big narrative,” Fadli said, as quoted by Antara, “is that Indonesia is the oldest civilization in the world.”
However, Daud Aris Tanudirjo, senior archaeologist at Gadjah Mada University (UGM), said the large number of Homo erectus fossils found in Java are not as old as the ones found in Africa, which may dispel Nusantara as the supposed point of origin for the ancient humans. He also said the 60,000-year-old Homo sapiens fossils in Lida Ajer Cave did not prove that ancient humans came from Indonesia, as many findings of early modern humans in other countries were at least 300,000 years old. “When placed within a wider Asian or even global context, these findings do not amount to evidence that humans originated here,” Daud said on Monday. “Like the early paintings found in Indonesia, they show cultural development, rather than earliest emergence.” (Jakarta Post)