A repost from the sci-fi blog. Some specifically sci-fi stuff snipped from the repost below.
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Archaeologists have discovered the first physical evidence of cannibalism by desperate English colonists driven by hunger during the Starving Time of 1609-1610 at Jamestown, Virginia (map)—the first permanent English settlement in the New World.
[…]
There are five historical accounts written by or about Jamestown colonists that reference cannibalism, but this is the first time it’s been proven, said William Kelso, director of archeology at Historic Jamestowne.
“This is a very rare find,” said James Horn, vice president of research for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. “It is the only artifactual evidence of cannibalism by Europeans at any European colony—Spanish, French, English, or Dutch—throughout the colonial period from about 1500 to 1800.”
Portions of the butchered skull and shinbone of a 14-year-old girl from England, dubbed “Jane” by researchers, were unearthed by Jamestown archaeologists last year. They found the remains about 2.5 feet (0.8 meters) down in a 17th century trash deposit in the cellar of a building built in 1608 inside the James Fort site.
[…]
Kelso said he hadn’t believed previous historical accounts regarding cannibalism. He thought they were politically motivated, intended to discredit the Virginia Company—the stockholders who provisioned and financed the settlement.
“Now, I know the accounts are true,” he said.
Jamestown Colonists Resorted to Cannibalism
By Paula Neely for National Geographic News
[…sci-fi snippo…]
According to Horn, of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Jane probably arrived at Jamestown in August of 1609 on one of six ships from England that straggled into the fort after surviving a hurricane during their crossing.
The new arrivals’ food stores were spoiled or depleted—most of their provisions were lost when the flagship Sea Venture shipwrecked during the storm—and many of them were in poor health, he said.
Jamestown Colonists Resorted to Cannibalism
By Paula Neely for National Geographic News
For want of a single ship = For want of a nail.
For want of a nail the shoe was lost,
for want of a shoe the horse was lost;
and for want of a horse the rider was lost;
being overtaken and slain by the enemy,
all for want of care about a horse-shoe nail.
(Yeah, Americans have been seriously interested in wealth generation for a long time now.
They’re smart folks when they want to be!)
Also, more than one battle and one settlement has been lost, because of the lost of a key ship… or a critical Naval courier.
The Jamestown colonists were already starving when the 300 new settlers arrived, having suffered from diseases and food shortages.
Increasing demands for food from nearby Indian tribes, coupled with severe drought conditions, caused relationships with the Powhatan Indians—a powerful chiefdom that extended across much of Virginia’s coastal region—to deteriorate.
Jamestown Colonists Resorted to Cannibalism
By Paula Neely for National Geographic News
The Referee should know when to pour on the pressure.
(Just like that other Referee…)
Also: be really cautious when making enemies with aliens with vastly superior levels of wealth and technology, striking them at the one-time-only Golden Moment when they are at their very weakest.
Maybe you can push them off. Maybe.
But if you fail, for ANY reason?
You and yours are finished.
The colony was saved that spring by the arrival of settlers who had been shipwrecked with the Sea Venture in Bermuda—they had built themselves a new boat—who brought in much-needed supplies. They were followed soon after by Lord de la Warr, Jamestown’s first governor, who brought in additional supplies—a year’s worth—and even more colonists.
Upon his arrival, De la Warr ordered a clean up of the fort. Trash, including Jane’s remains, were deposited in cellars and pits throughout the settlement.
Jamestown endured and colonists kept coming. “They kept their foothold and kept the Spanish from claiming all of North America,” Horn said.
“This discovery underlines the incredible challenges each colonist faced in establishing European settlements in the New World. There were scores that never lasted more than 6 to 12 months.”
Jamestown Colonists Resorted to Cannibalism
By Paula Neely for National Geographic News
At the moment, there is a Narrative that paints White American as the Master Race, utterly superior and untouchable in every way, casually crushing all the Coloureds under their heel as if they were bugs… and giving their lives the same value.
This is a simple pack of lies: but, regrettably, a pack of lies that certain White Americans dreamt up and pushed in the first place.
And acted on, as well.
Humility is better than pride for more than one reason.
Also, pride really is of the devil, as the Puritans — a deeply pious group noticeably wiser, smarter, saner, and pro-liberty than their descendants, the deeply pious Progressives2 — would have pointed out.
The Other Road
Would the Indians offering a friendly, compassionate hand have worked out better? Maybe, maybe not. If there was some third threat that would push the Indians and the English settlers together… maybe.
What the North American Indians really needed to do was build vast cities in order to survive on the scale of the Mexican and Andean Indians. Big numbers means — among other benefits — the strength to survive a 90% die-off when measles and smallpox arrives, and a mixed-race future instead of a future when you and yours are either as dead as dust, or are pushed into some barren impoverished reservation somewhere.
1Noticeably, there was no armed coup and descent into total lawlessness when Captain John Smith left for England, leaving behind the less-experienced George Percy to run the show as the colony stood under Indian siege without, and cannibal-backed famine within.
2Who hates their super-successful father more deeply than the overshadowed and extremely envious son? A sad but common story, first shown with God and Adam, and repeated over and over and over again.
Also: the accursed tale of sons killing their fathers, and fathers killing their sons, is a blight on more than one [aristocratic] family.
Yes, Jesus broke the pattern, the family curse.
But most men still prefer pride to humility, dragons to lambs.
Proud death to humble life.
I am sad that the Puritans failed their Maker at the critical moment. But facts are facts.
And the critical moment?
The history of the secularization of the American republic is the history of a process of substitution: personal experience in place of judicial confession as the basis of church membership. It began in Puritan New England, probably by 1636, when the churches began requiring candidates for membership to relate the experience of their salvation. Without this confirming experience, the candidate’s request was denied.
Critical Mass, Part XVIII: Why Revivalism Leads to Humanism
Gary North
Not the Objective Law of God, but the Subjective Feelings of a Man, determines reality.
It was not Atheists who made the switch, but Pious Religious Professionals.
When — after more than 386 years! — American Christians FINALLY start cleaning house, THEN things will change for the better.
And not a microsecond before, as pointedly demonstrated over the last four centuries.
Acrosss the Stars 