Arctic expedition eat each other to survive?

The cause of the ill-fated 19th-century British expedition leaving the ship stuck in the thick ice in the Arctic and forced to eat each other to survive remains a mystery.

The mystery of the Arctic expedition to eat each other to survive

In 1845, Captain John Franklin, the British knight leading the Arctic expedition, consisted of 129 people leaving England on HMS Erebus and Terror HMS. In theory, the expedition has many favorable factors.

Ultrasound image of the ship is under the Arctic Sea of ​​Canada.(Photo: Park Canada)

Franklin is an experienced Royal Navy officer. He used to join three previous Arctic expeditions. The fourth expedition took place when he was 59 years old, aiming to find a sea route from the Canadian Arctic region to the East.

Both HMS Erebus and Terror HMS are very solid, carrying large quantities of food, enough for 5-7 years. Also, every previous Arctic expedition took place smoothly.

" Arctic exploration in the 19th century is a relatively safe occupation. The death rate is only 1% (one person in the North Pole goes to the North Pole)," Simon Mays, research author - archaeologist comments of Historic England, comment. Historic England is an organization established by the British government to preserve buildings, buildings and historic sites.

However, the Arctic is a remote and dangerous place, the most experienced explorers may have to surrender.

Jam in ice

The first year of the journey is the year of the Arctic with a low area of ​​ice. The expedition 129 crossed Baffin Bay near Greenland and then moved through the Canadian Isles to find the Northwest Corridor . When the ocean freezes, two ships get stuck during the winter near King William Island .

"However, the team calculated that they would be stuck in a few, not just one or two winters. So they loaded a lot of food on two ships, " Mays said.

Unfortunately, in the following summer, the amount of ice on the sea was quite large, so the ship continued to be stuck. The crew contacted the mainland for the last time on April 25, 1848. They announced that 24 people died before leaving the ship. Franklin also died here, June 11, 1847, according to the latest findings.

After abandoning the ship with ample food, the expedition intended to walk 1,600 km to the Hudson Bay trading station, following the Back River abundantly with fish.

Hungry

Leaving the train and going in the other direction is the wrong decision. Only a few birds can live in the polar regions, but fishing is very difficult and requires humans to thicken ice to release bait into the water. Even Inuit aboriginals, polar inhabitants, also stay away from this area because food is extremely scarce.

"Can't feed that many people by punching the ice (to fish)," Mays exchanged with Livescience.

Nobody in the group passed a fifth of the way to Hudson Bay. And for years after that, no one knew what happened. It was not until 1854 that a Canadian cartographer listened to Inuit aboriginals that people in Franklin's group ate each other.

Ships stuck in ice and sailors decided to abandon ships.(Artwork: Rich.edu)

More than 150 years later, scientists discovered the remains of the men and the two ships. They found many cuts on countless human bones - a sign that someone had removed flesh from the bone.

Although scientists have long known the phenomenon of cannibal sailors exists in harsh circumstances, it takes many years, new research shows that Franklin's cannibalism is much more horrible. a lot of.

In the study published on June 18 in Osteoarchaeology (Archeological Anthropology), Mays and Owen Beattie, an anthropologist of the University of Alberta (Canada), evaluated 35 bone fragments from two areas: Booth Point and Bay of Erebus.

They saw many cracks and smoothness on the bone - a sign that the ends of the bones were boiled and rubbed into the pot wall. It often happens in the last stage of cannibalism, when hungry people eat all the meat and suck the marrow in bone to get energy and nutrition.

The mystery is not a solution

But Mays's research has yet to shed light on the mystery: Why many of the team members died before they left the ship, and the reason they decided to leave the ship.

One theory is that many people in the group suffer from vitamin C deficiency (with symptoms such as blood flowing from the gums, slow healing wounds, many deep bruises under the skin). Or some people die from lead poisoning, leaving the rest frightened. Researching tooth samples will clarify these hypotheses, Mays said.

Mays' research is consistent with the accounts of Inuit aborigines. Accordingly, human bones piled up, as if someone had broken bones to suck marrow, Anne Keenleyside, a Trent University biologist in Canada, argued. Anne did not participate in the Mays study.

Despite this shocking discovery but it " made it clear in desperate circumstances, what the explorers do," Keenleyside said. " Or imagine in that situation, what will you do?"