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SCIENTISTS have revealed that they have found the first solid archaeological evidence that some of the earliest American colonists at Jamestown, Virginia, survived harsh conditions by turning to cannibalism.

 

We have heard all the tales that some of the first permanent English settlerments in America had to eat things like dogs, cats, rats, mice, snakes and shoe leather to stop starving.  I’m sure there are still people around the world today having to do the same thing. 

 

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and archeaologists from Jamestown are announcing the discovery of the bones of a 14 year old girl that shows clear signs that she was cannibalised.  Evidence indicates clumsy chops to the body and head of the girl, who appears to have been dead at the time.  So even though there were written accounts of settlers eating their dead, and even though archaeologists didn’t really believe the stories, it looks like they were wrong. 

 

The human remains date back to a deadly winter known as the “starving time” in Jamestown from 1609 to 1610.  Hundreds died during the period, according to Douglas Owsley a Smithsonian forensic anthropologist.  Scientists have said the settlers likely arrived during the worst drought in 800 years, bringing severe food shortages for the 6,000 people who lived at Jamestown between 1607 and 1625.

 

 

Early Jamestown colony leader George Percy wrote of a ‘world of miseries,’ that included digging up corpses from their graves to eat when there was nothing else.  ”Nothing was spared to maintain life,” he wrote. 

 

Percy and Captain John Smith, the colony’s most famous leader documented a man who killed, and salted his pregnant wife before eating her.  This man was later executed. 

 

Smith wrote “One amongst the rest did kill his wife, powdered her, and had eaten part of her before it was known, for which he was executed, as he well deserved.”

 

This is a huge discovery for scientists, but seriously no matter how much your partner frustrates and annoys you, I’m not sure killing and salting them would be the way to go. 

• Big John

  Epic fails in marriage counciling!

  May 2, 2013, 4:19 am 0 Reply