The wreck of the Dutch East India Company ship Batavia, which sank off the coast of Western Australia in 1629, is one of the most infamous in the region's history – primarily because of the massacre and mutiny that took place amongst the survivors. Of particular interest to the researchers was where these sandstone blocks had been sourced from – and the answer to that question has revealed a surprising strategic choice by the Dutch East India Company four centuries ago. "We wanted to know if tiny mineral grains could give us a reliable fingerprint of where the stone formed, and help reveal how the Dutch East India Company sourced and transported materials across its global network." When the researchers compared samples from two sandstone blocks against each other, they found their patterns didn't match. Both are known to have been used by the Dutch East India Company.