STOCKHOLM, Sept 30: Sweden handed over to a group of Australian aborigines on Thursday the remains of about 20 of their ancestors smuggled out of Australia almost 90 years ago by a Swedish zoologist who pretended they were kangaroo bones.

In a ceremony at the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm, where the bones have been on display, a delegation headed by Joey Chat field, from the Kirrae Whurrung people in the state of Victoria, accepted the bones for reburial back home.

"I am happy, I am overwhelmed, this has taken a lot of weight off my shoulders and I am ready to bring these remains home," he told Reuters. Swedish zoologist Eric Mjoberg found the skeletons during an expedition to Australia in 1910-1911. But the museum said it was not interested in keeping human remains. -Reuters