6. Archeological evidence of cannibalism during the early days of Jamestown, Virginia
The Winter of 1609, in the struggling English colony of Jamestown in Virginia, has long been known as a period when the settlers ate dogs, horses, cats, and whatever else they could find to survive. There is no archeological evidence that on at least one occasion some of them resorted to eating each other. Based on skeletal remains analyzed by archeologists from the Smithsonian Institution and Preservation Virginia, at least one person, an unknown young girl they called Jane, was butchered in a manner to allow the consumption of internal organs and parts of the body. The remains were found in a refuse pit where the bones of butchered animals were also found.
The team speculated that the skull was split open to remove the brain, and other marks indicated that the tongue and cheeks were also removed, likely to be eaten. The leg muscles were also butchered in a manner to indicate they were to be eaten. Letters from residents of the colony during the Starving Time long hinted at some of the colony resorting to cannibalism, including one from George Percy, who had led the colony at the time. In 1625 Percy wrote, “that nothing was spared to maintain life and to do those things which seem incredible, as to dig up dead corpses out of graves and to eat them”.