historiographer have long speculated that punishing conditions in Jamestown – the first permanentEnglish settlementin the Americas – may have driven some of its resident to cannibalism . Now , archeologists say they ’ve uncovered their first unvoiced grounds of colonial anthrophagy : the hacked - at remains of a teenage girl , apparently butchered for her essence .
Smithsonian Mag ’s Joseph Stromberg has the harrowing details :
The rough wintertime of 1609 in Virginia ’s Jamestown Colony forced residents to do the unthinkable . A late excavation at the historical site discovered the carcase of dogs , cats and horses consumed during the season normally called the “ Starving Time . ” But a few other newly discovered off-white in particular , though , secern a far more gruesome story : the taking apart and cannibalization of a 14 - year - old English girl .
“ The chop to the forehead are very provisional , very uncomplete , ” saysDouglas Owsley , the Smithsonian forensic anthropologist who study the clappers after they were find by archaeologists fromPreservation Virginia . “ Then , the body was turned over , and there were four rap to the back of the head [ see effigy below ] , one of which was the hard and split the skull in half . A penetrate combat injury was then made to the leftover temple , in all likelihood by a individual - sided tongue , which was used to pry get to the foreland and take the brain . ”
Much is still obscure about the circumstances of this grisly repast : Who precisely the young lady research worker are calling “ Jane ” was , whether she was murder or give way of raw lawsuit , whether multiple people participate in the butchery or it was a solo act . But as Owsley reveal along with lead archaeologistWilliam Kelsotoday at a closet conference at the National Museum of Natural History , we now have the first verbatim grounds of cannibalism at Jamestown , the oldest lasting English colony in the Americas . “ Historians have go away back and forward on whether this sort of thing really happened there , ” Owsley allege . “ give these bone in a methamphetamine pit , all cut and chopped up , it ’s vindicated that this soundbox was dismember for intake . ”
The rest of Stromberg ’s opus is as morbid as it is engrossing . Check it out , along with several more images , over at Smithsonian .
CannibalismScience
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