It's hard to imagine, and it's even harder to hear the evidence. Harder still that it was the skull of a 14-year old girl, whom archaeologists have named "Jane," that leads to the certainty. A series of marks on her skull, lower jaw, and leg bone all prove the work of an axe-yielding, desperate cannibal. Experts say that the marks on her skull, made after her death, display a hesitancy, as if the hacker were learning as he or she went along. The marks on her leg, however, show the signs of an experienced butcher.
"The girl’s bones were found mixed with those of a horse, dogs and squirrels — testament to the extreme food sources the colonists turned to that winter. They were part of the trash collected in a fort-wide clean-up and dumped in the cellar before the arrival of the colony’s governor, Lord De la Warr, the following June.
The cause of her death isn’t known. The tentative cuts to the front of the skull and the deeper ones to the back are all close together--evidence she was dead, not squirming, when they were made."
The Washington Post put together an incredible story here, although it's gruesome and we don't suggest reading it over your lunch break.
Thursday, May 2, 2013 - 07:19
The little rumor has been circulating in archaeology departments for years: that the desperate Jamestown settlers resorted to cannibalism to get through the winter of 1609-10. There was a report of a husband killing his wife and salting her flesh; colonists mysteriously disappeared while out foraging for food; and a few corpses were reportedly exhumed and, well, eaten. The murderous husband was later executed, but it's unclear what happened to the cannibal's corpse.
It's hard to imagine, and it's even harder to hear the evidence. Harder still that it was the skull of a 14-year old girl, whom archaeologists have named "Jane," that leads to the certainty. A series of marks on her skull, lower jaw, and leg bone all prove the work of an axe-yielding, desperate cannibal. Experts say that the marks on her skull, made after her death, display a hesitancy, as if the hacker were learning as he or she went along. The marks on her leg, however, show the signs of an experienced butcher.
"The girl’s bones were found mixed with those of a horse, dogs and squirrels — testament to the extreme food sources the colonists turned to that winter. They were part of the trash collected in a fort-wide clean-up and dumped in the cellar before the arrival of the colony’s governor, Lord De la Warr, the following June.
The cause of her death isn’t known. The tentative cuts to the front of the skull and the deeper ones to the back are all close together--evidence she was dead, not squirming, when they were made."
The Washington Post put together an incredible story here, although it's gruesome and we don't suggest reading it over your lunch break.
It's hard to imagine, and it's even harder to hear the evidence. Harder still that it was the skull of a 14-year old girl, whom archaeologists have named "Jane," that leads to the certainty. A series of marks on her skull, lower jaw, and leg bone all prove the work of an axe-yielding, desperate cannibal. Experts say that the marks on her skull, made after her death, display a hesitancy, as if the hacker were learning as he or she went along. The marks on her leg, however, show the signs of an experienced butcher.
"The girl’s bones were found mixed with those of a horse, dogs and squirrels — testament to the extreme food sources the colonists turned to that winter. They were part of the trash collected in a fort-wide clean-up and dumped in the cellar before the arrival of the colony’s governor, Lord De la Warr, the following June.
The cause of her death isn’t known. The tentative cuts to the front of the skull and the deeper ones to the back are all close together--evidence she was dead, not squirming, when they were made."
The Washington Post put together an incredible story here, although it's gruesome and we don't suggest reading it over your lunch break.