An archaeological dig by a team including University researchers did not find evidence of cannibalism at one of the infamous Donner Party’s two campsites.
“We wanted to add complexity into an event that’s been simplified over time,” said lead researcher Julie Schablitsky, historical archaeologist and adjunct assistant professor at the University Museum of Natural and Cultural History.
From November 1846 to April 1847, the 81-person Donner Party was stranded in the Sierra Nevadas near Truckee, Calif. while migrating westward from Illinois. According to “New Light on the Donner Party,” a Web site by historian Kristin Johnson, various rescue parties that came to their camp found some members of the party had engaged in cannibalism.
The party’s larger campsite, which included 60 people, is now the site of Donner Memorial State Park. The smaller campsite at Alder Creek Camp six miles away, which Schablitsky studied, held 21 members of the party.
In 2003 and 2004, Schablitsky and colleague Kelly Dixon, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Montana, gathered 16,000 bone fragments from the site.
Gwen Robbins, a doctoral student in anthropology at the University, said at least 15,000 of these were less than a quarter inch in diameter. Those that were analyzable were about half an inch in diameter, and burnt from cooking.
Robbins, assisted by then-undergraduate Melissa Hanks, conducted various analyses on the bones to determine whether they were human or not. One of these analyses looked at proportions of different types of tissues in the bones.
“We looked at 30 fragments of bone, and we did not find any human remains,” Robbins said.
Hanks said they had to develop a new method to test the samples, grinding them down to ultra-fine samples in order to identify them.
“I personally ground them all down by hand,” she said. “It was a lot of work. I probably spent about 200 to 250 hours in the lab.”
Robbins said the Donner Party’s diaries referred only to eating cattle and cow hide, but added that the diaries probably do not provide a full picture of party members’ lives because they were too preoccupied with staying alive and possibly delusional from starvation.
Schablitsky said that according to the historical record, cannibalism did not begin at the Alder Creek Camp until February, late in the winter. Because of this, any cannibalism occurring at the Alder Creek Camp would probably have been limited to flesh and internal organs, and the bodies would not have been processed to the bone. Bones that are boiled do not decompose as rapidly as other bones left in the soil, Schablitsky said.
Half of the Donner Party survived the expedition, and Schablitsky said the great-granddaughter of some of the campers has been involved with her project from the beginning.
Robbins said the descendants of the Donner Party are still affected by their ancestors’ reputation.
“If you were to ask someone who is a descendant of the Donner Party, it matters a lot to them,” Robbins said.
Schablitsky presented her research last weekend at the Society for Historical Archaeology’s conference in Sacramento, and said it was well-received, especially for its interdisciplinary nature – the team also included historians, a psychologist and a medical doctor.
The team also found other artifacts, including lead shot made into bullets and pieces of slate that a party member who was a schoolteacher may have used to teach lessons to children in the party. Schablitsky said most of these artifacts are smaller than a quarter and not museum display quality, but added that they will probably wind up in custody of the museum and interpretive center at Donner Memorial State Park.
“You learn about this kind of thing in elementary school, so to be touching a part of history is amazing,” Hanks said. “These people went through something so spectacular and came out the other side to tell about it.”
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