Franklin expedition captain who died in 1848 was cannibalized by survivors (arstechnica.com)

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Scientists at the University of Waterloo have identified one of the doomed crew members of Captain Sir John S. Franklin's 1846 Arctic expedition to cross the Northwest Passage. According to a recent paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, DNA analysis revealed that a tooth recovered from a mandible at one of the relevant archaeological sites was that of Captain James Fitzjames of the HMS Erebus. His remains show clear signs of cannibalism, confirming early Inuit reports of desperate crew members resorting to eating their dead.

"Concrete evidence of James Fitzjames as the first identified victim of cannibalism lifts the veil of anonymity that for 170 years spared the families of individual members of the 1845 Franklin expedition from the horrific reality of what might have befallen the body of their ancestor," the authors wrote in their paper. "But it also shows that neither rank nor status was the governing principle in the final desperate days of the expedition as they strove to save themselves."

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this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024

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Archaeology or archeology[a] is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes.

Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time.

The discipline involves surveying, excavation, and eventually analysis of data collected, to learn more about the past. In broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Read more...

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