October 7, 2024
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Cannibal captain of doomed Arctic expedition revealed by DNA test
Scientists reveal the identity of cannibalized captain of the failed Northwest Passage expedition from 1845 to 1848
The engraving depicts HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, two ships used by Sir John Franklin on his ill-fated quest for the Northwest Passage in 1845. The ship was stuck in ice for three years in King William Sound (Victoria Strait), and all 135 people died.
New DNA analysis has identified the remains of British naval officer Captain James Fitzjames, who went missing during Canada’s fateful Northwest Passage expedition more than 175 years ago.
Fitzjames was part of an expedition led by Sir John Franklin that set out from England in 1845 with 129 men on two ships, Erebus and Terror. The expedition aimed to navigate the Northwest Passage, an arctic route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, both ships became stuck in the ice and all their crews died.
Fitzjames appointed as commander Battleship Erebus Franklin died once, but his ship was trapped on King William Island. Fitzjames is only the second person to be identified on the island, although the skeletal remains of many sailors have been found in various locations on the island during the 19th century. In a new study, a team of Canadian scientists isolated DNA from teeth attached to jaw bones found in a pile of about 400 human bones and teeth and matched them with living relatives.
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The study’s lead author, Douglas Stenton, an archaeologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada, and his colleagues extracted DNA from a molar tooth discovered in 1993. They also collected DNA samples from 25 living descendants of the Franklin Expedition’s crew. The tooth’s Y-chromosome profile matched that of Fitzjames’s second cousin, one of his living relatives who had been removed five times. Both “cousins” shared a paternal ancestor, namely Fitzjames’ great-grandfather.
Researchers already knew that the person, now identified as Fitzjames, was likely cannibalized. In previous analyses, bioarchaeologist Anne Keenleyside (who died in 2022) found cut marks on many of the recovered artifacts, including the newly analyzed jawbone. This indicates that the survivors ate parts of Fitzjames’ body (as well as those of other sailors) to avoid starvation, the authors of the new study said.
Related: Explorers look back on 1845 Arctic expedition that ended in death and cannibalism
This discovery made Fitzjames the first confirmed cannibal victim among the expedition’s members. “He may have been one of the first to die” on King William Island, the authors wrote in a study published Sept. 24 in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. It is written.
Daguerreotype of James Fitzjames taken by Richard Beard in May 1845.
Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s
Part of the expedition’s history is known thanks to Fitzjames, who left an eerie note on a cairn at Victory Point on King William Island. The notes recorded the deaths of several crew members, including Franklin, and the survivors’ decision to abandon ship and walk to the Back River in Nunavut, Canada’s northernmost territory.
But they all died before getting there. Later, search teams guided by Inuit discovered the skeletal remains of the sailors at various locations on King William Island. The AMC TV series “The Terror” was a horror drama adaptation of this expedition.
This is the second confirmed member of the Franklin Expedition. In 2021, Stenton and his team identified the remains of Erebus chief engineer John Gregory through DNA extracted from his skull.
The expedition’s cannibalistic findings corroborate the oral accounts of the Inuit who led investigators to the skeletal remains of the expedition members. The Inuit witnessed 40 men pulling a ship’s boat on a sled, and the following year they discovered many bodies near the mouth of the Back River, some with signs of cannibalism. there were.
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