The winter of 1609-1610 was a pretty horrible time to be a resident
of Jamestown, the early English settlement in what is now coastal
Virginia. How horrible? Aside from the rampant disease, the starvation,
and attacks by surrounding native tribes, people were also EATING EACH
OTHER.
So confirms new forensic evidence found at the Jamestown settlement site.
Written accounts of the so-called Starving Time claimed that Jamestown
settlers resorted to cannibalism to survive, but this is the first
forensic corroboration of it. Scientists working with Bill Kelso,
director of archeology for the Jamestown Recovery project, uncovered
partial human remains -- a mutilated skull and a disarticulated leg --
in a midden heap mingled among the butchered remains of horses and dogs.
Suspicious markings on the bones suggested that this body had also
been butchered. Anthropologist Douglas Owsley, of the Smithsonian
Institution, conducted isotopic tests on the bones, revealing that the
skull and leg belonged to an English girl, and the bones' physical
characteristics showed that she was about 14 years old when she died. A
variety of tool marks in the bone show someone, first tentatively and
then forcefully, trying to deflesh her skull. A sharp puncture through
the left temple and subsequent cracking show that someone eventually
worked up the nerve or strength to pry her skull open. Finer knife marks
along the cheekbone and jawline suggest that someone purposefully cut
flesh off of the skull.