Donner Party cannibalism: absence of proof vs proof of absence

No human remains found among the debris at the Donner Party's Sierra Nevada campsite, according to today's AP reports -- which rather misleadingly state that this disproves the allegations that the survivors resorted to cannibalism in extremis. Read more closely and you'll see that the only thing definitively established was the absence of cooked human bone. Not to spoil anyone's appetite, but from what I recall about documented cases of survival cannibalism, it's usually more a matter of a strip of flesh here and another there, keeping the rations as unrecognizable as possible.

Posted by David on January 13, 2006 9:54 AM