The demands for museums to "return" their exhibits are reaching the absurd. Gibraltar demands two Neanderthal skulls, age 50,000 years or more, on the grounds they were found in Gibraltar.

Gibraltar was part of the British empire, so placing the skulls in the British Museum was legitimate — and surely more useful to paleontology than keeping them in out-of-the-way Gibraltar.

I urge museums to stop arguing that laws forbid them from "returning" exhibits, and start building the case that there is no reason to do so.