BERLIN (AP).- Namibian tribal leaders were taking possession Friday of the skulls of 20 of their countrymen, taken by German colonial forces more than a century ago for racial experiments. The handing over of the skulls is a rare reminder of Germany’s short-lived past as a colonial power in Africa, which included the bloody suppression of a Herero and Nama uprising between 1904 and 1908 that left tens of thousands dead. The heads of four females and 16 males, including a young boy of about three, were removed from their bodies and preserved in formaldehyde intact with faces, skin and hair. Researchers say the skulls do not show any sign of violence, and it is not clear how the people died, though they were possibly victims of German forces in Namibia at the time, or died in a German-run camp. Once the remains arrived in Berlin, between 1909-1914, scientists tried to prove the “racial superiority” of white