Cannibalism at Jamestown Confirmed: Settlers Ate 14-Year-Old Girl (VIDEO)
Archeologists have found proof that early Jamestown settlers turned to cannibalism in a desperate attempt to survive during some of the harshest periods.
"Nothing was spared to maintain life," early Jamestown colony leader George Percy wrote in a historical record, recounting Jamestown as a "world of miseries."
There were 6,000 people in Jamestown during the harsh drought that caused a food shortage in the area between 1607 and 1625. As a result, records reveal that settlers at times were forced to eat dogs, cats, rats, mice, snakes and shoe leather. But according to recent finding by archeologists, it appears they ate humans as well.
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The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History has announced the discovery of a 14-year-old girl's skeleton. The bones of the girl suggest that she had been cannibalized.
Historical accounts had previously suggested that cannibalism had occurred during the more difficult part of Jamestown's history. In one account, Capt. John Smith claims a man killed his pregnant wife, salted her, and then began to consume her.
"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."
But historians were skeptical about believing the accounts until now.
"Historians have questioned, well did it happen or not happen?" forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley said in an interview with the Associated Press. "And this is very convincing evidence that it did."
The girl's body had been dismembered after death and discarded in an area that appeared to hold trash and other bones of horses and animals who appeared to have been consumed.
"This does represent a clear case of dismemberment of the body and removing of tissues for consumption," Owsley told AP.
William Kelso, the chief archaeologist at Jamestown, is now working with the Smithsonian museum in Virginia to help put the girls remains on display. Museum organizers hope that her bones will tell a story about human history and capabilities.
"We found her in a trash dump, unceremoniously trashed and cannibalized, and now her story can be told," Kelso said. "People will be able to empathize with the time and history and think to themselves, as I do: What would I do to stay alive?"
