Starving Jamestown Colonists Engaged in Cannibalism

The incomplete skull is seen with four shallow chops. Courtesy Don Hurlbert, Smithsonian Just two years after colonists established the first permanent English settlement in the Americas at Jamestown, disaster struck. During the winter of 1609-1610, known as the “starving time,” about 80 percent of the colonists died. Accounts written at the time indicate that cannibalism was one way the survivors held on. Now, examination of remains of one young woman from the period provide the first physical evidence to confirm that some colonists ate the flesh of their deceased brethren. The incomplete human skull and tibia were excavated at the settlement's James Fort. Researchers determined they belonged to a girl approximately 14 years old; her cause of death was unclear. But after she died there is strong evidence that her flesh was forcibly removed, according to analysis by Douglas Owsley at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Owsley ...