A facial reconstruction of “Jane of Jamestown” is seen during a news conference at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Scientists announced during the news conference that they have found the first solid archaeological evidence that some of the earliest American colonists at Jamestown, Va., survived harsh conditions by turning to cannibalism presenting the discovery of the bones of a 14-year-old girl, “Jane” that show clear signs that she was cannibalized. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
From the last episode, we know Jamestown’s English settlers got their colony off on the wrong foot; this week, join your Horrific History co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Jordan Watney, as they get to the meat of the subject and explore both the period accounts of cannibalism in addition to the recent related archeological finds. What led the Jamestown colonists to experience such desperation that they would themselves engage in murder, grave-robbing, and the eating of human flesh? Which famous person from the colony wrote a book to profit off those same horrors?
We’ll also explore the more recent historical accounts of the 1972 Andes Flight Disaster, also referred to as the Miracle of the Andes, when 45 people aboard a small aircraft crashed atop an unnamed mountain (later named Glaciar de las Lágrimas, or Glacier of Tears) which straddled the remote mountainous border between Chile and Argentina. When the remaining survivors heard on the radio that the search parties had called off the rescue efforts, they had to give up hope or find a way to survive. Hear about the lengths they went to survive the crash and the journey to, without provisions or equipment, climb down a mountain to let the world know they were still alive and needed help. Could you go to the same lengths, eating your deceased family, friends, or even your wife?
Torture and wife-killing, shipwrecks and airplane crashes, this episode has a lot of adventurous stories with its cannibalism (or in some cases, anthropophagy)! Whether you prefer your human roasted, boiled, carbonado’d or dried, you’ll find something for your tastes! So dig up a corpse and sit down with nice bottle of wine while you enjoy this latest Horrific History episode through one of your favorite podcast services (iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn and more). Join us again in two weeks when we’ll explore some of the horrible history which led humans to develop ways of filtering drinking water!
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Some of our favorite resources from this week’s episode:
- Encyclopedia Virginia
- EbWiki.org
- The Struggle for Power in Colonial America, 1607–1776
- PBS
- History is Fun, 2
- Virtual Jamestown
- The Deadly Politics of Giving: Exchange and Violence at Ajacan, Roanoke, and Jamestown
- Jamestown Rediscovery, 2
- Science
- History.org
- National Geographic, 2
- The Atlantic
- Smithsonian Magazine, 2
- History on Trial
- Delbridge.net
- Live Science
- William & Mary
- History.com
- UNC Libraries
- Envisioning an English Empire: Jamestown and the Making of the North Atlantic World
- DocPlayer.net
- Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings
- American Heritage
- Medical Daily
- Gizmodo
- Business Insider
- The Disease Daily by HealthMap
- Science Line
- NPR
- Inverse
- I Had To Survive: How a Plane Crash in The Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives
- Independent
- NY Daily News
- Daily Kos
- Miracle In The Andes: 72 Days On The Mountain And My Long Trek Home
- Stranded: I Have Come From A Plane That Crashed On The Mountains
- Tribune
- NYTimes, 2
- The Times
- BBC
- SeanMunger.com
- Daily Mail, 2
- The Journal
- People
- Washington Post
- CommonLit
- NBC News
- Viven
- Alive (book)
- Alive (movie)
Commercial break music by Dead but Dreaming.
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