British, Japanese and Chilean archaeologists have discovered the spot where Alexander Selkirk, the model for the castaway Robinson Crusoe, survived in solitude for four years and four months.

After a 13-year search, the team, led by Daisuke Takahashi, a Japanese explorer, believe that they have identified where the 18th-century sailor camped, cooked and kept a lonely lookout. The crucial breakthrough was the discovery of a fragment of one of Selkirk’s navigational instruments.

The real-life Crusoe’s place of exile was Más a Tierra in the Juan Fernandez archipelago, 470 miles off the coast of Chile. The identity of the island has long been known; the Chilean Government renamed it Isla de Robinson Crusoe in the hope of attracting fans of Daniel Defoe’s novel. But until now, no one knew where exactly Selkirk had lived.

Last January Mr Takahashi took a team of four scientists to the remote spot where he suspected Selkirk’s camp had been. There they found traces of a fire, animal bones and holes in which Selkirk appears to have placed poles to support a shelter.

But the decisive evidence was a 6mm piece of copper, discovered by David Caldwell of the National Museums of Scotland, and identified by him as the point of a pair of 17th-century dividers. Dr Caldwell said: “Selkirk was a navigator, and the account of his discovery states that he had his navigational equipment with him. In archaeological terms that is as good evidence that you are going to get.”

Alexander Selkirk was born in Fife in 1676 and ran away to sea as a teenager after being charged with indecent behaviour. He joined William Dampier, the explorer and privateer, but fell out with a senior officer. Doubtful also about the seaworthiness of the ship, he had himself put ashore on Juan Fernandez in October 1704 in the belief that he would be picked up by another ship.

His fears about the vessel were well-founded — it sank soon after with the loss of most of its crew. But his optimism about rescue was misplaced, and it was not until February 1709 that he was found by a British captain who went on to publish a book describing the discovery.

Selkirk survived on a diet of wild fruit and vegetables, and a colony of goats. Unlike Crusoe, he had no Man Friday. By the time of his rescue he had lost his command of English, but was in reasonable health.

Dr Caldwell, who spent a month on the island this year, said: “If you’re going to be a castaway, that’s the place to choose. It’s a warm climate all the year round, there are berries you can eat safely and abundant fish and other resources.”

The team lived with the island’s 600 Chilean inhabitants, descendants of Spaniards who settled on the island 40 years after Selkirk had left.

SELKIRK'S STORY

• Alexander Selkirk was born in Fife in 1676, the son of a shoemaker. Experience of tanning helped him to make clothes out of goatskin
  
  
• He immediately changed his mind about being put ashore and shouted in vain to the Cinque Ports to return
  
  
• Two ships called at the island but they were Spanish and, as he was a British privateer, he hid
  
  
• Three years after his rescue he married a 16-year-old dairymaid in Scotland. He was back at sea within a year
  
  
• He died of yellow fever in 1721 and was buried at sea off West Africa
  
  

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