The decision to return more than 28,000 fossils to Indonesia is the latest act of restitution by the Dutch government of art and artifacts taken — often by force — from countries around the world in colonial times.

Some Western nations are returning looted artifacts and other objects as part of a reckoning with their often brutal colonial histories. Earlier this month, Madagascar received three skulls of Indigenous warriors returned from France, including one believed to be of a king killed by French troops 128 years ago. The repatriation marked the first use of a 2023 French law regulating the return of human remains to its former colonies.

In recent years, a Berlin museum announced that it was ready to return hundreds of human skulls from the former German colony of East Africa and France said it was returning statues, royal thrones and sacred altars taken from the West African nation of Benin. Belgium has returned a gold-capped tooth belonging to the slain Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba.

I hope we see more and more of this… yes, I’m looking at you England…