36 Figure 1. BUEE Lot 882 ‘The Super Pit’ (Photo: P. Baker, Western Australian Museum). Bulletin of the Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology (2012), 36: 36–43 Preliminary analysis of copper alloy fastenings from an unidentiied shipwreck in Koombana Bay, Western Australia Madeleine McAllister Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Museum, 47 Cliff Street, FREMANTLE WA 6160 Email: maddy.mcallister@museum.wa.gov.au Introduction In November 2011, the City of Bunbury Council and the Western Australian Museum investigated anomalies identiied during remote sensing surveys of two vacant blocks on the Bunbury foreshore, Koombana Bay (Anderson & McAllister, 2012 forthcoming). The aim of the excavation was to determine if the anomalies were historic shipwrecks and therefore protected by the Western Australian Maritime Archaeology Act 1973 (Anderson 2010: 4). The project involved signiicant public outreach in the form of tours and local public lectures, as well as enlisting archaeology students as volunteers. One of the three sites unearthed was located in Lot 882, Bunbury Excavation East. Affectionately referred to as ‘the Super Pit’, the trench in which the site was situated measured approximately 10 m x 10 m in size, with staggered walls reaching down to a depth of approximately 5 m below ground level (Fig. 1). This trench revealed a relatively intact bow section of a large wooden vessel. Water spears were placed around three walls of the trench, at approximately 1-m intervals, to pump out water and lower the water table enough for the wreck to be excavated. As a result of the 2011 project analysing the structure of the vessel has been a primary focus in order to identify the site. Apart from three whalers there are numerous other historic shipwrecks in the same area and only through this in-depth investigation will identiication of this shipwreck be possible. This paper presents the preliminary results of on-going investigations into the structural analysis of this wreck and is focused speciically on the copper alloy fastenings and sheathing recovered from the site. The composition of these fastenings was analysed using both a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) EDAX with a SUTW-Sapphire detector and a handheld X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) machine. While the data is presented in a semi-quantitative format, see tables below, the limits of SEM and XRF machines and methods used in acquiring the elemental Bulletin36_20121105.indd 36 7/11/12 12:49 PM