Yet the Kabwe mine also left a happier legacy, one that all of humankind can celebrate: In 1921, miners working there discovered the fossilized skull of a possible human ancestor, along with some other bones thought to be associated with it. Dubbed “Rhodesian Man,” this hominin might occupy a pivotal place in the evolutionary transition from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens. Today anthropologists refer to the find as the “Kabwe skull” and recognize it as the first early-human fossil discovered in Africa, found at a time when most scientists were looking to Asia or even Europe for the origin of our species.

Soon after its discovery, mining officials sent the fossils to the British Museum for study. In subsequent years, the skull and other remains stayed in the United Kingdom, and today they reside in London’s Natural History Museum. The Zambians have been trying to get them back for decades, to no avail.

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The United Kingdom has a reputation for fiercely resisting the return of antiquities acquired during colonial times, especially tourism-generating treasures such as the Parthenon sculptures (a.k.a. Elgin marbles) from Greece and the Rosetta stone from Egypt. But last May, at a meeting of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) heritage committee in Paris, Zambian representatives finally broke through British resistance. The United Kingdom agreed to sit down and talk about the possible repatriation of the skull and related fossils back to Zambia.

British and Zambian officials are being tight lipped about the upcoming negotiations, citing their sensitive diplomatic nature. Yet the decision to discuss repatriating the skull fits a more recent pattern wherein former colonial powers have begun returning cultural artifacts and human remains to indigenous peoples. Examples include Germany’s return to Namibia of the remains of more than 25 victims of a colonial-era genocide, including 19 skulls that had been taken out of Africa in the early 20th century for “anthropological” research; France’s return of the remains of Saartjie Baartman (also known as “Hottentot Venus”) to South Africa for proper burial; and the Smithsonian Institution’s repatriation of human remains to New Zealand and to Native American tribes in the United States.

If Britain agrees to return the remains of the Rhodesian Man, it could provide a major boost, the Zambians say, to their national identity and would represent a major victory for repatriation efforts worldwide. At stake are key issues about the rights of former colonies to control their own heritage, and the responsibilities of former colonial powers to own up to the sins of the past.

On June 17, 1921, a Swiss miner named Tom Zwigelaar and a young African miner, working at Broken Hill, uncovered the Rhodesian Man. We owe details of the discovery to Aleš Hrdlička, a famed anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution, who traveled to Northern Rhodesia to gather more information about the exact location where the skull had been found.