Historians have found the first firm evidence that starving colonists at America's first English settlement resorted to cannibalism.
Forensic experts from Washington's Smithsonian Institution say they found the bones of a 14-year-old girl among the remains of horses, cats and dogs at Jamestown, Virginia. They say the girl's remains show sloppy and desperate signs of butchering, including chops to the head in an apparent effort to take out her brain for food.
English-speaking settlers from Europe arrived in Jamestown in 1607.
The experts say drought, disease and the brutal winter of 1609 killed off thousands of colonists. Desperate for food, many of them ate cats, dogs, rats, horses, shoes or dug up human corpses.
Forensic experts from Washington's Smithsonian Institution say they found the bones of a 14-year-old girl among the remains of horses, cats and dogs at Jamestown, Virginia. They say the girl's remains show sloppy and desperate signs of butchering, including chops to the head in an apparent effort to take out her brain for food.
English-speaking settlers from Europe arrived in Jamestown in 1607.
The experts say drought, disease and the brutal winter of 1609 killed off thousands of colonists. Desperate for food, many of them ate cats, dogs, rats, horses, shoes or dug up human corpses.