The Unlucky Voyage

Batavia’s (1629) Landscape of Survival on the Houtman Abrolhos Islands in Western Australia

Bibliographic Data

ID12038947
AuthorsAnn Paterson (0000-0002-3370-7390, The University of Western Australia, corresponding author), Jeremy Green (0000-0003-2806-1924, Australian Museum), Wendy van Duivenvoorde (0000-0003-0770-3123, Flinders University), Daniel Franklin (0000-0003-2605-1343, The University of Western Australia), Ambika Flavel (0000-0002-5565-7224, The University of Western Australia), Liesbeth Smits (University of Amsterdam), Jeffrey Shragge (0000-0002-1986-0399), Martijn Manders (0000-0001-5368-5347, Leiden University), Corioli Souter (0000-0002-3560-4360, Western Australian Museum), Deb Shefi (0000-0002-7060-944X, Western Australian Museum), Ross Anderson (0000-0001-8697-5682), Ross C Anderson (0000-0002-2250-4686, Australian Museum), Thomas Hoskin (The University of Western Australia), Nader Issa (The University of Western Australia), Mike Nash (Parks and Wildlife Service)
Year2023
Volume57
Issue1
Pages32-49
Publication date2023-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistorical Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0440-9213 • E-ISSN: 2328-1103
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s41636-023-00396-1
OpenAlexW4382447800
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited9

The loss of the Dutch East India Company ship Batavia in 1629 on the Houtman Abrolhos off the west coast of Australia and subsequent mutiny is one of the most dramatic events in the history of European encounters with Australia, and was widely popularized in 17th-century publications. The archaeological remains surpass that of a shipwreck with its consequent jetsam and flotsam, and are the silent witnesses to a cultural landscape of survival created within a few months by a horrible sequence of events. Here we present archaeological evidence collected from 2014 to 2019 in a new research project that informs on these historical events. We discovered 12 victims in single and multiple graves, as well as evidence for survivors’ resistance to a band of mutineers and remains of the possible gallows site where 7 mutineers were executed. Together these sites contribute to the understanding of the survival landscape at one of the earliest European sites in Australia

Ancient history · Archaeology · Ethnology · Genealogy · Geography · Mutiny · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies · History · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology

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