A chance find of pottery shards, a compass and a bronze clasp could clarify the fate of the people sailing in the Vergulde Draeck, a Dutch East Indiaman which foundered on the rocky coast of Western Australia in 1656.

The wreck of the Vergulde Draeck was discovered by fishermen in 1963 but there was no sign indicating what had happened to the crew and passengers.

However, some of their possessions have turned up three kilometres inland from the coast at Ledge Point, where the ship is thought to have sunk.

The finder, who wished to remain anonymous, kept the artifacts because he was interested in the history of the ship and his grandmother owned some old Dutch coins that were said to be from the wreck.

The man almost discarded the sinker because he thought it was modern but was told by a neighbour it resembled a find in the WA Shipwrecks Museum in Fremantle. He then handed over the objects to the museum.

“The discovery of the survivors’ camp is very important because it can tell us much about the people who survived these early shipwrecks,” museum director Alec Cotes told broadcaster NOS.

The site has since been explored further, resulting in more finds, including an intact clay pipe, which is on show at the Fremantle museum, along with the other newly discovered objects.

The 41-metre vessel set out from the Wadden island of Texel on a journey to the VOC headquarters in Batavia, the present-day Jakarta.

There were 193 people on board, some 75 managed to get to shore, but all perished in the barren and inhospitable stretch of coast despite three rescue missions in the three years that followed, and which resulted in another 11 seamen perishing on the rocks.