Remains of captain of “Cannibal Expedition” found in a tooth

In May 1845, two ships departed from the port of Greenhithe, about 40 kilometers from London: HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. Both were part of the Franklin Expedition, whose purpose was to navigate the Northwest Passage, an Arctic sea route connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The expedition consisted of 129 men, but both ships They became trapped in the ice and the entire crew died.The last news we have about him was in 1848.

We had to wait two years for this Some skeletal remains found in first rescue operation…and more than 120 (by 1981) for a scientific expedition led by Owen Beatty, professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta, who had initiated the forensic anthropology project of the Franklin expedition.

Now, new DNA analysis has identified the remains of Captain James FitzJames, commander of HMS Erebus, making him the second member of the expedition to be identified… Thanks to another crew member’s tooth,

Study leader Douglas Stenton, an archaeologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada, extracted DNA from a tooth found in 1993. He also collected DNA samples from 25 living descendants of the Franklin expedition. The tooth’s Y chromosome profile matched that of one of the surviving relatives.who was Fitzjames’ second cousin. Both “cousins” had the same ancestor: Fitzjames’ great-grandfather.

Researchers already knew that this man, now identified as Fitzjames, was likely a cannibal. In an earlier analysis, bioarchaeologist Anne Keenlyside had found cut marks on several recovered remains, including a jawbone analyzed by Stenton’s team. it indicates that survivors ate parts of Fitzjames’ body (and other sailors) in an effort to avoid starvation, the study notes.

Fitzjames also made this discovery First victim of cannibalism identified among expedition members“He may have been one of the first people to die on King William Island,” says Stenton.

Part of the history of the expedition is known due to Fitzjames, who left an ominous note on a stone cairn at Victory Point on the island where he died. The note documented the deaths of several crew members, including Franklin, and the survivors’ decision to abandon ship and travel on foot to the Back River in Nunavut, Canada’s northernmost territory. But they all perished before reaching there. Later, guided by Inuit, search teams discovered the sailors’ skeletal remains at several locations on the island.

it is Second member of Franklin’s expedition identifiedIn 2021, Stenton and his team identified the remains of John Gregory, chief engineer of HMS Erebus, from DNA extracted from his skull.

The expedition’s findings of cannibalism support oral accounts from the Inuit, who led researchers to the skeletal remains of expedition members. Eskimo They saw 40 people pulling a ship’s boat on sledges And, the following year, they found several corpses near the mouth of the Back River, some of which showed signs of cannibalism.