- I'm standing here in the
archaeological excavation
of a cellar room that is located
within the site of 1607 James Fort.
Here, we recently discovered
the mutilated skull
and severed leg bone
of an English teenage girl
that was found lying among
the discarded butchered horses,
other animal bones, dogs,
that indicates that this material
was deposited from the Starving Time
of 1609 to 1610.
This discovery may confirm
a number of 17th-century references
which describe the Starving Time
and the desperation of the colonists
and that some of them resorted
to living off of the people that died first.
- We have an aborted attempt
to break the cranium open
with four impacts that were cutting
through the tissue,
then a shift to the back
of the cranium
with more serious impacts
to the back of the cranium here
that actually broke into the cranium.
So the person is attempting to gain entry
into the vault, presumably to remove the brain.
When you look at this portion
of the maxilla, the right maxilla,
that's represented in this fragment here,
and you'll see that there are multiple cuts
in this area right here,
so this would be our third tool.
We have some type of cleaver
or hacking implement.
We have some sort of pry bar
that is used over here
that has a rectangular edge,
and now we've got a very fine knife,
and that fine knife
is leaving marks
at specific locations.
From my experience working
with prehistoric skeletons,
where I have seen post-mortem--
meaning after death-- processing of remains,
this is absolutely consistent with what we see
in cannibalism in those types of cases.
- We might imagine what conditions
were like 403 years ago,
when nearly 300 settlers
were crowded into this fort,
terrified to go
beyond the palisade
because death waited for them outside
in the form of the Powhatans,
who were there to pick off stragglers
as they emerged.
There was very little food left,
no hope of provisions coming in from outside.
It's a tragic story with the terrible conditions
here at Jamestown during the Starving Time,
and it's a story of perseverance and endurance,
and that story lives on.
