On June 4th 1629, a contrived dispute in order to instigate a mutiny on the Duch East India Company vessel, the Batavia, culminated in the deaths of over more than 120 people. The bodies of the dead are still being discovered both in the sea and on a small island near where the ship ran aground. In 2016 archaeologists recovered a skeleton at the site of a shipwreck off Western Australia. The remains reveal the brutal past and coldblooded massacre of Beacon Island.
According to BBC News, the wreck site on Beacon Island was first discovered in 1963, and a mass grave filled with remains was located in 1999.
Researchers conducting excavations on the island this week have located a skeleton which they believe is an adolescent, and is thought to be linked to the Batavia tragedy. Two musket balls were with the remains. Marine experts are calling the find “extraordinary,” reports The West Australian.
The replica of the Batavia, the ill-fated Dutch vessel. Public Domain