Farm to Table
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Archaeologists with a reconstruction of the Jamestown cannibalism victim. (The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Many people might think of cannibalism in distant history and undeveloped countries. But cannibalism was a feature of early American history too.
In 2013, archaeologists revealed they'd found evidence of cannibalism in Colonial Jamestown — an indication of just how desperate early Colonial life had been. Specifically, they discovered markings on the skull of a 14-year-old girl that strongly indicated she'd been eaten by settlers during the particularly difficult winter of 1609.
It was more concrete evidence for something historians had read stories about for years. As Howard Zinn excerpted in A People's History of the United States, one government report painted a grim picture of that winter:
Driven thru insufferable hunger to eat those things which nature most abhorred, the flesh and excrements of man as well of our own nation as of an Indian.
There are many horrifying examples of cannibalism in Europe throughout history. But one of the most bizarre is that cannibalism was occasionally seen as a remedy. To pick one example, in Germany from the 1600s to 1800s,executioners often had a bizarre side job that supplemented their income: selling leftover body parts as medicine.
Apothecaries regularly stocked fat, flesh, and bone
As described in Kathy Stuart's Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts, human fat was sold as a remedy for broken bones, sprains, and arthritis. Usually, this human fat was rubbed as a balm, not eaten. However, apothecaries regularly stocked fat, flesh, and bone, and there are also examples of a human skull being ground into a fine powder and mixed with liquid to treat epilepsy.
That treatment may sound strange, but remember that eating placenta has become a modern-day health fad. Most of the time, the popular verdict on cannibalism is clear — don't do it. But occasionally, what's cannibalism and what isn't has been surprisingly hard to define.
https://www.vox.com/2015/2/17/8052239/cannibalism-surprising-facts
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