WA Museum Batavia expeditions, 1967-2018

This was the first WA Museum Batavia-related archaeological work in the Wallabi Group. Test excavations on Beacon Island and West Wallabi Island uncovered artefacts associated with Batavia survivors including fragments of a bone comb, a button, and ceramic sherds. Artefacts associated with guano miners from the 1800s were also found.

The newly assembled Maritime Archaeology team led by Jeremy Green conducted four expeditions to the Batavia wreck site. Using tape measures, drawings and photography (including stereo-photogrammetry) the team documented the entire site and recovered sandstone blocks, artefacts, and a large section of hull timbers.

Divers during the excavation of the Batavia wreck site, 1973. Each timber was individually tagged in place before being raised.

Credit: WA Museum, BT/A/173

A test excavation of the coastal structure on West Wallabi Island uncovered iron nails and portions of barrel hoops—the types of materials likely to have been used by the survivors to craft rudimentary weapons to defend themselves from the mutineers. This structure was determined to be the only stone structure in the Wallabi Group that could be positively attributed to the Batavia survivors. Test excavations in the southeast portion of Beacon Island uncovered a range of artefacts associated with Batavia survivors.

Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) was used for the first time by the Museum on a Batavia-related site. The GPR survey was conducted in the area of a communal grave on Beacon Island reported during the 1993 Commonwealth Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 amnesty. Skeletal remains belonging to three adults and two children were excavated from the site.

Excavation on Beacon Island, 1999.

Credit: WA Museum, BIEx/253

Prospero Productions sponsored an expedition to recover the soil feature from the communal grave excavated on Beacon Island in 1999, for the series 'Shipwreck Detectives'. Forensic analysis was conducted on the skeletal remains previously excavated from the same site. A metal detector survey was also carried out at northern end of Long Island.

Dense soil feature being excavated in the Materials Conservation laboratory, 2001.

Credit: WA Museum

Excavation of the coastal structure on West Wallabi Island recovered personal artefacts, such as book clasps and lace tie-ends. The metal detector survey on Long Island continued, and hundreds of fragmented, corroded wrought iron bolts and fastenings were located at one site. The freshwater rockholes on East Wallabi Island were photographed and position-fixed using Differential Geographic Positioning System (DGPS).

Copper-alloy book clasps recovered during excavation of the coastal structure on West Wallabi Island, 2007. This find was the first archaeological confirmation that Batavia survivors had brought books ashore with them.

Credit: WA Museum, BAT3949

Professor Alistair Paterson discussing excavation on Beacon Island as part of the Shipwrecks of the Roaring Forties Project (ARC Linkage LP130100137).

Credit: University of Western Australia | WA Museum

The WA Museum was a Partner Organisation in the University of Western Australia-led Australian Research Council Linkage Project: LP130100137: Shipwrecks of the Roaring Forties: a maritime archaeological reassessment of some of Australia’s earliest shipwrecks. The research team conducted five expeditions to the Wallabi Group to apply new methods and technologies to Batavia’s terrestrial sites and collections (held by the WA Museum).

With the removal of the buildings from Beacon Island in 2014, remote sensing and geophysical surveys were able to be conducted on previously inaccessible areas of the island. The subsequent excavations uncovered large amounts of personal objects, such as amber beads, clothing hook and eye clasps, buttons and a comb. Twelve additional individual skeletons were also excavated. New forensic techniques, such as isotopic analysis, were applied to all human bones and teeth recovered from Beacon Island between 1963 and 2018. The results revealed new information about people’s diets and countries of origin.

An excavation was carried out on Long Island at the site found in 2007. The findings reinforced the theory that this was the site of the gallows erected to execute Cornelisz and six other mutineers. All excavation sites and the structures on West Wallabi Island were recorded as 3D photogrammetric models and position-fixed using Differential Geographic Positioning System (DGPS).