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Fri 13 Jan, 2006 11:40 pm
Research doesn't support cannibalism by Donner family
By SCOTT SONNER - Associated Press Writer
01/13/06
RENO, Nev.
They ate the family dog, but the latest research into the Donner Party found no conclusive evidence of cannibalism by the Donner family at a Sierra Nevada campsite where several of the pioneers died in the winter of 1846-47, two scientists said Thursday.
?'?'I think this has the potential to revise the way people look at the Donner Party,'' said Kelly Dixon, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Montana and one of the lead authors who presented the findings at a conference of the Society for Historical Archaeology in Sacramento, Calif.
Sawed and chopped animal bone fragments recovered during an archaeological dig at the Alder Creek campsite over the past three years suggested ?'?'extreme desperation and starvation,'' their study concludes.
But there's no physical evidence members of the Donner family themselves resorted to the ultimate survival tactic that became synonymous with their name for a century and a half, the authors told The Associated Press.
?'?'The Donner Party's experience was bad, but it wasn't as bad as everybody's been told,'' said Julie Schablitsky, the other lead researcher who is a historical archaeologist at the University of Oregon's Museum of Natural and Cultural History.
The findings don't necessarily disprove the accounts of cannibalism told by rescuers and survivors stranded in a fierce winter storm in the mountains southwest of Reno and north of Truckee, Calif.
But the absence of any cooked human bones among the thousands of fragments of bones of livestock and wildlife at the Alder Creek site suggest Donner family members may not have succumbed to the desperate temptation to resort to cannibalism, the archaeologists said.
If cannibalism did occur at the Alder Creek site in what is now the Tahoe National Forest, it took place during the last few weeks of their entrapment, by fewer than 12 individuals and the bodies were not processed to the bone, they said.
Of the 81 members of the Donner Party, 60 of them from the Reed, Breen and Graves families among others spent the brutal winter at a site where cannibalism has been documented, along what is now called Donner Lake bordering Interstate 80 just west of Truckee.
I believe the last two paragraphs of the article make the rest of the article almost meaningless with respect to discrediting the original accounts.
flyboy804 wrote:I believe the last two paragraphs of the article make the rest of the article almost meaningless with respect to discrediting the original accounts.
Exactly my thought as well
Seems the point of the article is to say that they have found no archaeological evidence for cannibalism. The article-- including the title-- is misleading, since 'research' should include the accounts of the survivors and rescuers, not just the material evidence.
Rather than bone, they probably should look at feces data (if preserved) if they want material evidence, as the party probably didn't treat human remains the same way they treated the remains of animals they ate, either in the way they ate them (the article suggests not processing to the bone) or in their disposal. And even then, unless there was rampant cannibalism, preserved material evidence may be hard to find.
...my $ 0.02
Yeah, it's a weird article. If the cannibalism happened, it would stand to reason it would be in the last few weeks, after they'd used up everything else and were desperate. It's not like, yum, let's eat Jim, and then after that we can have a nice beef repast. :-?
I saw that article, BBB. Now we only have Alive to support survival of the species<smile>
Well, there goes Stephen King's The Shinning.(never liked that book, anyway)
From an historiographic perspective, Flyboy nailed this one down . . . NEXT ! ! !
The reason that I questioned, Setanta, is because I didn't understand what you meant.
Historiography is the discipline which studies the writing of history, and the collection of historical data along with the verification of same . . . Flyboy's remark sums up the value of the posted article.
Yelling "NEXT" simply means, bring on something else . . .
I understood that, Setanta. You just sounded like you thought all other contributions were pointless.
The article fails to make clear two crucial points which are to be found in the professional literature on the excavation. First the Donner Party was named after the family that organized the trek and is separate from the Donner family. The second is that the Donner party was split into two groups that became separated and wintered approximately 10 miles apart. Members of the Donner family were in one of those camps, but not both. The cannibalism, which did occur, took place at only one of the two camp sites and not at the one the Donner family was living in.
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