The Netherlands has returned the stays of three authentic inhabitants of Statia that archaeologists discovered on the 8.1 sq. mile island over 30 years in the past. The stays – of an grownup male and a feminine and her unborn youngster – are believed to be a couple of thousand years outdated.
They had been handed over to Raimie Richardson, the heritage inspector on the Division of Tradition Statia, by Arthur van Geel of the college of Leiden, the place they’d been preserved and studied since their discovery within the Eighties.
“Heritage is a gift from our ancestors; our heritage and historical past have the facility to construct a nation,” mentioned Richardson, who travelled house with the stays on 12 December. “It’s becoming that they’re returned to their authentic homeland the place they are going to be reburied in an applicable and respectful method.”
The return of those stays completes the repatriation of the complete Versteeg assortment, after greater than 40 containers of artifacts and human stays had been returned to the island in February of this 12 months. The Versteeg assortment refers to bone fragments and artifacts, together with containers of ceramic and shell meals stays, that had been discovered throughout an excavation led archaeologist Aad Versteeg from 1984 to 1989 on the FD Roosevelt Airport. It was a part of a analysis undertaking by the Archaeological Centre of the Leiden State College within the Netherlands and the Archaeological-Anthropological Institute of the Netherlands Antilles in Curaçao.
“We’re more than happy than after our intensive analysis of those stays, we will return them to their native land,” mentioned Dean Jan van Kolen of Leiden College’s college of archaeology. “Because the time of excavation, a lot has modified across the remedy of human stays. With this repatriation, we’re as soon as once more displaying that we wish to work collectively to make sure that archaeological analysis is performed with respect for all concerned.”
The request for repatriation was revamped a 12 months in the past by the Division of Tradition as a part of a brand new push to get better artifacts and human stays held by former colonial powers and others to spotlight and protect Statia’s historical past. These embrace native artifacts at present housed at William & Mary, a US college in Williamsburg, Virginia.
The indigenous individuals are believed to have lived in Statia earlier than the arrival of Spanish conquerors. The island later modified palms a number of occasions amongst Britain, France and the Netherlands. It’s now a particular municipality of the Netherlands with a inhabitants of about 3,200.
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