Excavated skull suggests Jamestown colonists resorted to cannibalism
Remains of 14-year-old girl suggest that starving settlers had to go to extreme lengths to survive harsh winter of 1609
Quote:
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Gruesome archaeological evidence has emerged revealing how some of the first settlers of America survived a period of famine. The vicious winter of 1609, dubbed the Starving Time by historians, saw the colonists at Jamestown, Virginia, who had consumed every scrap of food in the settlement, turn to cannibalism. When help and supplies finally arrived the following spring, only 60 of the original 300 settlers were still alive. The skull of a 14-year-old girl, excavated last year from a rubbish dump at James Fort, has revealed a mass of cut marks, at first tentative, then fiercely smashing the skull apart to extract the brain and other soft tissue for food.
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Full article
here.
I recommend reading it. This first paragraph sounds gruesome, but researchers apparently believe that she was not killed, but had a natural death and was then SCAVENGED for her flesh by other villagers.
The crux of the story however: 90% of her bones are missing, there wasn't a lot more found than her head and a few extremities' remains. And those bones were found in an excavated,
PUBLIC trash pit,
so whoever ate her apparently didn't bother to keep it a secret.
So can anyone really know whether or not she was murdered and then eaten...?
