Archeologists study Donner campsite
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A couple of years ago, we reported on the bizarre story of a
German
cannibal who ate a willing victim he met on the internet, in a
bizarre sadomasochistic act.
Cannibalism is actually not as uncommon as you
might think, even among humans. In the past, it was
sometimes done in an attempt to gain the strength and
courage of the person being eaten, but in modern times,
desperately hungry people resort to it surprisingly often.
The German cannibal Armin Meiwes explained his action to a
judge by saying, "I wanted to eat him, but I didn't want to
kill
him." He was sentenced last January 2to 8 ? years for
manslaughter, but he will be retried and may get a tougher
sentence this time. He admitted killing Bernd-Juergen
Brandes, but was not given a life sentence because the
victim had said he wanted to be eaten.
Archeologists excavating the site where the Donner party
was lost in California's Tahoe National Forest have found no
obvious signs of cannibalism. It has long been assumed that
the survivors ate the dead in order to stay alive, after being
caught in a blizzard. They did find used tea cups and other
tableware that were used to eat domestic and wild animals
while stranded in the Sierra Nevadas during 1846-47, but
results of analyses of bone fragments found at the campsite
in do not show any evidence of cannibalism.
In 2003 and 2004, archeologist Julie Schablitsky and her team
found a cooking hearth and an associated shelter at the site,
along with thousands of pieces of burned bone. They also
found wagon parts, writing slate, musket balls, pieces of tea
cups and plates, bottle shards, and lost jewelry.
Mitochondrial DNA testing was done on the bone fragments to
determine if they were human. However, the genetic material
was too degraded and no DNA could be lifted from the bones.
In the course of testing, Guy Tasa and Gwen Robbins
examined the bone fragments to determine if they belonged
to any animal species. They found the Donners lived off of
their livestock and wild game. No human bones were in the
collection they tested.
Shannon Novak looked for trauma and "pot polish" on the
bone fragments. The presence of pot polish indicates that
bones have been boiled in water and is an indicator of
cannibalism. Novak discovered that many bone fragments
were sawed, chopped and cut as well as polished, suggesting
extreme desperation and starvation among the group, but
none of the bones appeared to be human. It?s now thought
that residents of the camp consumed domestic and wild
animals, including the family dog.
Over the last several months, the History Channel and the
New Yorker have followed the team?s work. The History
Channel will air a 30-minute segment on the Donner Party in
their new cannibalism documentary scheduled for this spring.
The New Yorker will publish a comprehensive story later this
month.
This week on Dreamland, William Henry interviews Philip Coppens
about The
Canopus Revelation: The Stargate of the Gods and the Ark
of Osiris.
William
knows something about
stargates
himself, so this should be an interesting show!
For more information, click here.
