A new grave has been discovered almost four centuries after the Batavia was wrecked on Morning Reef, within the Abrolhos Islands. The remains on Beacon Island, off Western Australia, date from the wreck of the Dutch East India ship the Batavia in 1629. Of about 341 people aboard, most made it to nearby islands but dozens were killed during a mutiny among the survivors. What then played out on the tiny coral outcrop was a 17th-century tale of mutiny and systematic murders of those aboard that inspired movies, books and plays and remained one of the darkest chapters of Australia's maritime history. Some of the evidence of the bloodthirsty episode has only now been uncovered, with experts revealing on Tuesday they have found another skeleton, the 11th found on Beacon Island since the 60s. There were no signs of trauma but two musket balls lay alongside - clear indicators of the victim's violent death. Image copyright Dr Paul Bourke Image caption The Batavia story is well-known across Australia 
 
 Jeremy Green, head of maritime archaeology at the Western Australian Museum, said they hoped to learn more about about the life of sailors on board Dutch East India Company ships. "We got to about a metre deep and had not found anything . A mass grave was discovered on Beacon Island in 1999, but archaeologists had to wait 15 years before old fishermen shacks were removed so they could comb the entire island for clues left behind in 1629. UWA Archaeologist Professor Alistair Paterson 
 
 The team of researchers was studying the island as part of the Australian Research Council-funded project, led by UWA archaeologist Professor Alistair Paterson. "It is as much about knowing where the people came from, what their diet was, as well as how they died," he said. The Batavia had sailed from the Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies but veered off course and was shipwrecked in the Abrolhos Islands. Some, including the ship's captain, navigated a longboat to Java to find help after it became clear they could not survive long on what was left of the ship's provisions. Undermerchant Jeronimus Cornelisz assumed charge of the group, and began picking off survivors, by sending them in search of water on nearby islands, where he thought they would not survive. Women and children were among those murdered and several women were kept as sex slaves.
– More details from "one of the darkest chapters of Australia's maritime history" are coming to light, nearly 400 years after they occurred. On June 4, 1629, the Dutch East India ship the Batavia was downed by a reef on its maiden voyage. Most of the roughly 340 people aboard managed to reach nearby Beacon Island, off Western Australia, with the ship's captain setting off in search of help in a longboat. What happened in July of that year was gruesome: The West Australian reports that more than 120 people, among them women and children, were massacred by a group of mutineers led by undermerchant Jeronimus Cornelisz: Some were felled by musket fire or swords, others poisoned or drowned. Upon the captain's return, Cornelisz and many of his men were executed, reports the BBC. The Batavia's wreck was found in 1963, and a mass grave on the island was uncovered in 1999. Australia's ABC reports that the final day of searching the island during a 2013 expedition surfaced a tooth. Upon returning, archaeologists searched the area where the tooth was uncovered and have now found the island's 11th skeleton—with an archaeologist explaining it's the first to have been found using archaeology, while the others found to date were uncovered "by accident." Two musket balls were recovered near the remains, which are believed to be that of a youth. Jeremy Green, the WA Museum's head of maritime archaeology, says it doesn't appear the remains and the tooth are linked, however, indicating there may be another grave nearby. He frames the importance of uncovering more: "This was the first time that Europeans lived in Australia—albeit it wasn't in the mainland but it was here—so it's the oldest known European habitation in Australia." (The tragic story behind three partial skeletons was recently revealed, more than 160 years later.)