ALICE PARK: Scientists have found the strongest evidence yet that the colonists living in Jamestown, Virginia may have resorted to cannibalism. Times were tough in Jamestown in 1609 and 1610. If you can imagine, winter was coming and supplies from England that were supposed to bring food and other materials never made it there, and relations with the local Powhatan Indians had gotten so bad that the few hundred settlers were actually hunkered down under a siege-like situation in the fort. People have written that things got so bad that the settlers may have resorted to cannibalism.

Researchers digging through a pile of debris in Jamestown found bones that really took them by surprise. There was two-thirds of a skull and part of a leg bone that belonged to what they believe was a 14-year-old girl. And the reason the skull surprised them was that it had some very unique marks on them.

But how do you even know that cannibalism happened when you're looking at bones that are several years old? Well, it helps if you're a forensic anthropologist, like Douglas Owsley who works at the Smithsonian Institution and was involved in interpreting the bones. What he saw was a skull that looked like nothing he had seen before.

It had multiple knife marks and several large gaseous to the front and back of the head that he believes were caused by either a cleaver or a lightweight hatchet. He also says there were signs that a sharp instrument was used to puncture part of the skull and pry it open. He told me that he believes that the 14-year-old girl was already dead when this occurred because he also works with victims of modern-day crime, and he says that if she had been alive when this happened, that there would be a different pattern of marks on the bones.

And even apart from the physical scars on the bones, he says that they can tell a fascinating story about this girl and where she came from. For example, doing chemical analysis, he can tell that she was likely recently from England because she didn't show signs of having eaten the primarily corn-based diet that was so prevalent in the colonies at the time.

She also had high levels of nitrogen in her bones, and that indicate she may have been well off in England and had access to eating a lot of meat and protein. He's also doing additional tests to confirm this. There are no written records of Jane's presence in Jamestown, but her bones are telling a very interesting story about an important, if gruesome period in our history.

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