Cannibalism in Jamestown: Colonists Ate a 14-Year-Old Girl's Brain

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/05/cannibalism-in-jamestown-colonists-ate-a-14-year-old-girls-brain/275490/


Numerous small knife cuts along the jawbone of "Jane of Jamestown," seen during a news conference at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History today (AP / Carolyn Kaster)

"So great was our famine, that a savage we slew and buried, the poorer sort took him up again and eat him," Captain John Smith wrote in 1624 of the scene in Jamestown, Virginia. He continued, "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. Now whether she was better roasted, boiled or carbonado'd, I know not, but of such a dish as powdered wife I never heard of."

Too soon, Captain John Smith. Too soon.


A facial reconstruction of Jane of Jamestown (AP / Carolyn Kaster)

The findings involve the cranium and mandible among other bones of what Owsley and colleagues determined to have been a 14-year-old girl. They call her Jane.

[MrScorpio]

1. I didn't know that the British sent zombies to Jamestown…

You really do learn something new every day.

[Ganja Ninja]

2. America - Founded by cannibals

[Javaman]

4. Fine Yound Cannibals.

sorry, old reference, couldn't resist.

[dembotoz]

3. yummy yummy yummy i have jane in my tummy

[Javaman]

5. Now this would make a great movie. nt

[Botany]

6. I guess the story of the man in Jamestown passing his wife in the woods is true.

[randome]

7. Back in those days, 14 year-old Jane may have been the wife Captain Smith alluded to.

[FSogol]

8. "eat one ankle and they call you a cannibal" or

"and may I take this opportunity of emphasizing that there is no cannibalism in the British Navy Jamestown Colony. Absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount, more than we are prepared to admit, but all new ratings are warned that if they wake up in the morning and find any toothmarks at all anywhere on their bodies, they're to tell me immediately so that I can immediately take every measure to hush the whole thing up."