Archaeology Magazine - November/December 2022 - 59

A skull excavated on Beacon
Island has a blade mark
on its crown, likely
inflicted by the gang
that commandeered the
castaways' camp.
a living surface, the cultural
remains that people used
during the three months
they were marooned, "
says Corioli Souter, a
WAM archaeologist
a
r
d
th
s
return, Hayes delivered
Cornelisz bound and
gagged to the commander,
and the ordeal
soon ended.
Batavia's saga became
a sensation in Europe,
recounted in a 1645 book
called The Unlucky Voyage of the
Batavia, which was based mainly
on Pelsaert's log and confessions from
the renegades and survivors' accounts
recorded by him. Among Australians,
the story has been told and retold as
a kind of alternative national foundation
myth in books, films, and even
an opera, a tale of fear and endurance
revealing how the first Europeans
to encounter Australia saw it merely
as an obstacle to their trading ambitions
and a place that brought out the
worst human instincts.
Divers located the wreck of Batavia
20 feet underwater in 1963. Between
1971 and 1976, researchers from the
Western Australian Museum (WAM)
salvaged the wreck, reconstructed its
hull, and retrieved 26,700 artifacts,
the largest maritime archaeological
recovery in Australia's history. Now
archaeologists are excavating the
islands where Batavia's survivors
camped and are finding bones and artifacts
that point to the lot of travelers
clinging to habits from home with no
idea whether they would ever be rescued-while
trying to save themselves
from a psychopathic tyrant. They are
also unearthing numerous skeletons,
a few of which have horrific head
wounds. While reconstructing the survivors'
story, archaeologists are documenting
the spread of Dutch material
culture, which, for the first time, had
reached Australia. " We are finding
archaeology.org
w
th
and curator. " It's not
the goal, but we are
a
th
a
also pulling up quite a
few bodies. "
f
N
amed for
an ancient
Germanic tribe
whom the Dutch considered
their ancestors, Batavia sailed
on her maiden voyage from Texel,
Holland, on October 29, 1628,
as the flagship of a fleet of seven
vessels heading to the East Indies.
Along with Pelsaert, aboard ship
was her skipper, Jacobsz. After a
long stopover at the Cape of Good
Hope, a power struggle erupted after
Pelsaert publicly disciplined the more
experienced Jacobsz for drunkenness.
Pelsaert had doubts about Jacobsz's
competence, and the skipper enlisted
the help of the future murderer
Cornelisz and other officers to plot
a mutiny-which they might have
carried out, if not for the shipwreck.
Batavia's demise came about in part
because of a radical shift in navigation
routes in the early 1600s that allowed
ships to reach the East Indies faster.
This shift had also led to the accidental
European discovery of Australia.
Following the time-honored route
sailed by the Portuguese beginning in
the 1400s, European ships
bound for Asia sailed
south around Africa, then
north along the continent's
east coast and then
east across the Indian
Ocean. But that route had
fallen out of favor because
of its unreliable winds, stifling
heat, and dangerous
reefs. Around 1600, sea
captains learned that it
was faster to sail straight
east from the southern tip
of Africa at a latitude of
around 35 degrees south
for several weeks, and
then turn north.
That route carried its
own dangers, however,
as ships could easily sail
too far east before turnA
portion of Batavia's stern on display at the WA
Shipwrecks Museum in Fremantle, Australia, shows how
expertly its planks were fitted together.
ing north. This was how
Europeans first encountered
western Australia,
starting with Dutch
skipper Dirk Hartog,
who landed at Shark Bay
in 1616. Another Dutch
captain, Willem Janszoon,
had ventured south from
59
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Archaeology Magazine - November/December 2022

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