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7.30: Archaeology unearths a mass-murder site

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Drawing shows confrontation on Beacon Island
7.30: Archaeology unearths a mass-murder site

SUBJECTS:  History

YEARS:  7–8


Discover a historic site that could reveal new evidence of the first recorded mass murder on Australian soil.

The site is Beacon Island, a small island off the coast of Western Australia near present-day Geraldton.

In this clip, reporter Mark Bennett visits the island with two members of a 1963 expedition that first investigated the site.


Things to think about

  1. 1.How could Europeans have carried out a massacre of other Europeans in Australia over a 150 years before the country was colonised? In 1629, the Dutch ship Batavia was sailing from Holland to the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) when it was wrecked off the Western Australian coast. Survivors reached nearby small islands but many among the crew mutinied and murdered nearly half of the others.
  2. 2.What twentieth century materials stand in the way of a full archaeological investigation of the 1629 massacre site? What evidence of the massacre do the archaeologists expect to find if the island is cleared of rubbish? What do the 3D images reveal about the fate of some of the massacre victims? Why do the archaeologists believe there are more graves to be found?
  3. 3.During this clip, two early Dutch sketches are briefly shown. One sketch depicts a massacre. The other depicts the executions of the murderers after the Batavia's commander returned from a boat voyage to get help in the East Indies. These sketches were published in 1647 and could not have been made by an eyewitness. How might they still be useful as evidence?
  4. 4.

    What does Jeremy Green from the WA Shipwrecks Museum want to happen in order to conserve the site and make the island's history more accessible to the public? Why do the archaeologists believe it is important to conserve such remains of the past? What do you think about this idea and why do you have that view?



Date of broadcast: 6 Jul 2013


Copyright

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