Chances are the Franklin Expedition has crossed your social media or news feeds in recent weeks. New research led by Anthropology's Dr. Douglas Stenton and Dr. Robert Park about the fate of one of its crew quickly gained international attention, thanks to an ongoing fascination with the tragic expedition's history and lore.
This time, it's all about James Fitzjames, a sailor and later captain of the HMS Erebus and one of 129 crew who perished. Working with the Paleo-DNA lab at Lakehead University, the team was able to identify Fitzjames by matching a DNA sample from a tooth to a DNA sample from a living descendant. Fitzjames is only the second member of the expedition to be identified. (The team identified John Gregory, an engineer aboard the Erebus, in 2021.)
If that wasn't newsworthy by itself, the paper also offered further evidence regarding the lengths the crew went to survive. In 1997 Stenton and Park's colleague Dr. Anne Keenleyside found cut marks on nearly one-quarter of the human bones at the site on King William Island in Nunavut - corroborating accounts from Inuit people in the 1850s that they had seen evidence of cannibalism. Metal cut marks on Fitzjames’ mandible not only show that his remains were subject to cannibalism, but are proof that he died before other crew members and that rank or status ultimately wasn't as important as survival.
Not surprisingly, Fitzjames's final fate has captured international attention, including stories coverage from CBC, BBC, the Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine, CNN, History.com, the New York Times and Canadian Geographic. Even pop culture outlets such as the Verge and Popular Science picked up the story.
Read the Waterloo media release for more details on the research.
Two views of the mandible (jaw bone) showing cut marks that are consistent with cannibalism. Photo credits: Anne Keenleyside.
Update October 18, 2024: As of today, the paper has an Altmetric score of 1007, and only some of that is due to news outlets.
“Identification of a Senior Officer from Sir John Franklin's Northwest Passage Expedition” by Stenton, Fratpietro and Park was published in the “Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.”
Adapted from a news item from the Faculty of Arts.