The big news from here in Virginia is the discovery that some of the English settlers at Jamestown in the early 17th century resorted to cannibalism to avoid starvation.
For years, there have been tales of people in the first permanent English settlement in America eating dogs, cats, rats, mice, snakes and shoe leather to stave off starvation. There were also written accounts of settlers eating their own dead, but archaeologists had been skeptical of those stories.
But now, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and archaeologists from Jamestown are announcing the discovery of the bones of a 14-year-old girl that show clear signs that she was cannibalized. Evidence indicates clumsy chops to the body and head of the girl, who appears to have already been dead at the time.
Smithsonian forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley said 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. Scientists have said the settlers likely arrived during the worst drought in 800 years, which resulted in severe food shortages for the 6,000 people who lived at Jamestown between 1607 and 1625.
What I didn’t know until this morning is that Captain John Smith, the famous leader of the Jamestown settlement, had such a grim sense of humor.
“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,” Smith wrote. “Now whether she was better roasted, boiled or carbonado’d [barbecued], I know not, but of such a dish as powdered wife I never heard of.”
What a card.