Secrets of the Dead (2000–…): Season 15, Episode 2 - Jamestown's Dark Winter - full transcript

Announcer: Coming up
on "Secrets of the Dead,"

a young girl travels
to the New World.

Man: She had arrived
with great hopes.

Announcer: But she finds
a colony in disarray.

Man: Jamestown's history
is pretty much

a colossal failure.

Woman: Nothing to eat,
so the monster

of hunger is loose.

Announcer: Was she the victim
of a terrible fate?

Man: Colonists were forced
to do those things

that nature most abhors.



Announcer:
"Jamestown's Dark Winter"

on "Secrets of the Dead."

"Secrets of the Dead"
was made possible in part

by the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting

and by contributions
to your PBS station from...

Narrator: Jamestown, the first
permanent English colony

in the New World,
one chapter in the beginning

of a new country,

but the colony has
a dark secret,

a horror hidden away by time.

Man: Rumors had already
started to reach London

of the horrific things that
were going on in Jamestown.

Woman: Things got very,
very bad very quickly.

Man: It must have been
an absolutely terrifying event.



Narrator: June 1609,
a young girl leaves England

bound for Virginia full of hope.

April 2012, archeologists
in Jamestown find

a definitive clue,

the long-lost key
to a disturbing mystery.

The blade comes in...

After these chops, you move

to the back of the head.

It must have been horrible.

We're looking at this,
and we're thinking, "Wow!"

Man: This, uh, probably has
something to do

with the cause of death.

Could this be a murder?

Narrator: The encounter
between modern science

and the remnants of the past
will change the way

we see the birth of America.

In the summer of 1609,
a fleet of English ships sails

across the Atlantic
bound for the American colony

in Jamestown, Virginia.

A young girl is
among the hundreds

of passengers,

a girl whose real name
may never be known.

The young girl, uh, is aboard,

and, uh, this is part
of the... the biggest fleet

to have left England
for Virginia.

It carried over 500 settlers,

uh, 9 ships.

Jamestown had been
founded two years earlier

but had not prospered,

and, uh, in fact,
the first couple of years

of Jamestown's history
is pretty much

a... a colossal failure.

Narrator: Jamestown is doomed
from the start.

The colonists settle on
a marshy island

with no fresh water,
where crops fail

and malaria flourishes.

Of the first 104 settlers who
come to Jamestown, all men,

only 38 survive
even the first 7 months.

The next year,
fire nearly destroys

the entire settlement.

The English had tried
to settle America

before with little luck.

A colony was seen
as a place where a person

went to die.

This was really a tough place.

This was a...
To establish this colony

was... was difficult
and... and... and dangerous.

Most colonies failed,

most colonies were
lost colonies,

and they usually failed
within the first 12 months

for a v...
For a variety of reasons,

extreme weather,
lack of supplies,

Indian attacks.

Narrator: Two years
after its founding,

the desperate colony
of Jamestown

still cannot feed itself.

Already, this is
the third expedition sent

to Virginia, a third emergency
rescue mission.

Perhaps this time
Jamestown will be saved.

Horn: So the young girl is...
Is part of this great effort

to reestablish the colony.

Uh, and there was
a... a grand vision

for an English New World,

an... an English America
that would in time rival

the great Spanish empire
to the south.

This fleet carried
the hopes of the nation,

and she went
with those hopes, too.

Woman: She was a young woman,
um, very young,

and would have probably
left her family behind.

Narrator: She left England
behind, as well.

This is the England
where Shakespeare

has just published his sonnets

and his plays run
at the Blackfriars Theatre,

but it's also
the England where thousands die

from rampant smallpox
and even the bubonic plague.

The Virginia Company
of London offers a chance

to start a new life in America,

knowing full well how dangerous
the enterprise really is.

Some on board have left
England in the hopes

of getting rich,

some hope for adventure,

and some have no choice.

You would need to have,
um—you know, you would need

to sort of collect these people,

sometimes from prisons.

Narrator:
The girl is likely a servant

for a wealthy family.

Straube: And they're crammed
aboard these ships

with livestock.

Women and children would have
been kept below decks.

For a young woman
who's a maidservant in a family,

this is probably
the biggest trip

that she has
ever taken in her life,

and, um, the trip must
have been absolutely horrible.

Man: On board a ship,
you're dealing

with, uh, sailors who come
from rough backgrounds.

You're dealing with a situation

that's uncomfortable,
dangerous even.

Um, the sights,
the smells, the sounds,

there's gonna be a lot
of fear and fright.

These are the people you
might have been warned

about your whole life.

Straube: One ship,
two women gave birth.

The children died.

But one of the ships
that came over, um,

is recorded as having
the plague on it.

So we know that there was
quite a lot of death.

At least 30 individuals
were tossed overboard en route.

That's recorded.

So it was a... it was
a horrific voyage.

Narrator: Real disaster strikes
on July 25, 1609,

a brutal storm
off the coast of the Azores.

"It's like a hell
of darkness turned black,"

one man writes.

Summers: Violent storms break
apart the fleet.

The ships are scattered,

battered, broken,

masts are being torn off.

One ship turns back
and is presumed lost.

It was a terrifying experience.

6 ships, uh, including,
uh, the ship

with the young girl on board,
um, carried on to Jamestown,

um, many of them
in pretty bad condition,

many, um... many
of the settlers sick,

many of the mariners injured,

many of the supplies
had been ruined.

Narrator: But finally the ships
limp up the James River

and arrive...

at Jamestown.

Doctor William Kelso
is the longtime

Director of Archeological
Research at Jamestown.

Kelso: We're here at the site
of original Jamestown.

It was first settled in 1607,

and it lived on to be
the first permanent

English settlement
in the New World.

We've been excavating here
for over 20 years.

What we've discovered
since we began was

the outline, or footprint,
of a triangular fort,

uh, almost 500 feet
of wall line,

or palisade line, around it.

Uh, and, uh, we've also
been uncovering

various buildings that
were use... that were built

through time within that fort.

Narrator: Kelso's team
has already made

many remarkable discoveries,

decoding the cryptic messages

in the bones
of Jamestown's settlers.

They found Bartholomew Gosnold,

one of the colony's leaders,
captain of the ship Godspeed,

buried in a gabled coffin
near the parade ground,

even the colony's
first fatality,

a teenaged boy killed
in an Indian attack,

an arrowhead still
embedded in his leg,

though the scientists
tell us an infection

spreading
from an abscessed tooth

would have killed
the boy soon enough.

Incredible discoveries,
but none of them compare

to what they're about to find.

Now, we're inside the fort,

inside the 3 walls
of James Fort of 1607.

We know that from archaeology
that began in 1994.

Inside the fort, we found
a number of building sites,

and one of the most
significant buildings

that we have found is
a cellar right over there.

Narrator: This cellar
in the end will reveal some

of the saddest secrets
in the history of America.

Kelso: This is a building site
that we call 191,

and the reason we know
it's a building is

because it has
architectural features to it.

Um, on one side we have...
We uncovered a set of steps

down into an L-shaped,
uh, cellar,

and in it, uh, are bake ovens.

So we felt like this was
a kitchen of 1608.

Woman: One of the earliest
features that we figured out

was just above here.

We had a... a circular
kind of oval area

of burnt clay up top.

Then as we worked
through those trash layers,

pulling those
out of the cellar, uh,

they revealed brickwork
as a front facade

for the opening entrance,

uh, getting
into this oven, here.

This becomes
the earliest brickwork

in English America.

Narrator: Jamie May has worked
with Bill Kelso

since the excavation
of James Fort began

18 years ago.

She's now a senior archaeologist

at Jamestown.

May: So we were digging
in a trash layer,

and we were finding the objects
you might normally find

in a trash layer,
including trade items,

including ceramics.

Narrator: The age
of the artifacts

pinpoints the era

when the cellar was used,
the early 1600s.

Kelso: Every last bit of soil
that we excavated

from that cellar kitchen has
to go through a screen,

and that screen catches
the... the smallest

artifacts that you can imagine.

Narrator: More than 47,000
artifacts have been found here.

In that window mesh
we're catching, uh,

very small Venetian glass
trade beads,

uh, little beads made in Venice,

as well as a lot
of animal bones.

Hmm. Wow, look at that.

Look at the blue.

I never knew they put
blue on the Bartmanns.

That's really a nice
blue, too, isn't it?

Wow.

Look at the blue on the pottery.

That is amazing.
Oh, wow.

Narrator: Structure 191
is a treasure trove

of European history,

and it's about to change
American history, as well.

That dirt, please, yes.

Hmm, that part's
real fragile, too.

Yeah, now it's loose.

May: We found that we were
getting a little bit

of a strange assemblage
that included things

like cats and dogs and horses.

Narrator: Finding skeletons
of domestic animals

provokes questions immediately.

May: Which was a little
bit more unusual.

You wouldn't expect
for people to be throwing

these animals in the trash.

So what's going on here?

Narrator: The discarded animal
remains would be just

the first strange discovery
in Structure 191.

To the colonists,
the ships arriving

in August 1609
seemed to be a godsend.

6 battered and broken
ships reached Jamestown.

On one of those ships
was the young girl.

Narrator:
The nameless girl has made it

to the New World at last.

She's kept her appointment
with destiny.

Horn: But this was not
the great fleet

that the colonists
already in Jamestown

expected to see.

Many of the supplies
had been ruined,

and there was inadequate
food, uh, for those who

were arriving, maybe
about 300 settlers,

and those who were
already in the colony.

May: They kind of limped
in here to Jamestown

with the hopes
of salvation here,

and instead, they, uh, came

during the worst
possible time period.

Narrator: The girl has come
to a world that is

new, vast, and strange.

Of the 130 people
already at Jamestown,

only two are women.

Straube: Women in our early
Jamestown period rarely

get mentioned, um, unless they
do something naughty,

and, uh, for instance,
we know one of the first

two women who arrived,
um, Ann Burras,

was a maidservant.

Um, she got in trouble for, um,

cheating on sewing
a shirt for servants

in the colony
and got caught at that

and was whipped publicly,

and, uh, unfortunately,
she was pregnant

and lost her child.

Narrator: What challenges
await the girl?

What adventures?

Horn: She had arrived
with great hopes,

great hopes that this would be
a new life in a new world.

Narrator: The new settlers
may be arriving

with their hopes intact,

but they bring
no food at all, none.

Summers: People in Virginia,
they're hoping to be resupplied,

and probably the last
thing they want to see

is 6 ships land
without any supplies,

more hungry mouths
to feed in an already

dwindling food supply,

and this girl was one of them.

It was a blazing hot summer
during a period of drought,

and unlike the Pilgrims,
this colony was never able

to sustain its own crops
and become self-reliant.

Narrator: What kind of life
would the arriving settlers

find in the New World?

George Percy, one
of the original colonists,

and the president
of the settlement,

described it this way...

Man as Percy: There were
never Englishmen left

in a foreign country
in such misery as we were

in the new-discovered Virginia.

Narrator: 400 years later
in the cellar of Structure 191,

researchers begin to find clues

to a timeless riddle.

Richardson: It was a typical
Monday morning.

You come into work,
and you never know

what you're gonna find.

May: Well, we'd been digging
in this L-shaped cellar

for 3 or 4 months, uh,
when we started finding

something that was not,
uh, an animal remain.

One of the students
on her, uh, swipe

across the layer of soil,
um, hit teeth.

Uh, and she alerted me to it,

and so I went over
and... and took a look,

and yeah, they looked
like human teeth to me.

We found teeth and the jawbone

and other fragments that were
not cats or dogs or horses,

but we could say
conclusively that these

were the bones of a human being.

Narrator: Jamie May knows
that finding human remains

in a trash pit is a very
different matter

from finding them
in a proper burial site.

Right now.
Let's go take a look.

Kelso, voice-over:
When Jamie came to me one day

as we were digging the cellar,

and said, "Uh, I think you'd
better come down

"and take a look
at something here.

I think we're finding,
uh, human remains."

We were over in...

this portion over here,

uh, right—almost
exactly right here,

uh, in the trash
layer where we've
been working.

Kelso, voice-over: And I thought
I ought to take a look

at this pretty close.

So I went down and take a look,

and sure, enough...

Man: We were really awestruck

once we realized
what we had found.

And we've uncovered,
actually, some human remains.

Uh, this is a cranium in situ,

and right next to
it there is a, uh,

native, uh, pot.

And we're gonna try
and remove these intact,

uh, right now.

Narrator: It's a delicate
and time-consuming task.

Lavin: Right now we've taken
out the, uh, native pot

that was right here.

So we're gonna try
and pedestal this around

so that we can remove
this as one big block of dirt

and then excavate it in the lab.

Richardson: So finding these
remains in the context

in which they were found
was super-exciting.

We all knew that this
was gonna be big,

almost as big as when we found
the fortification.

Narrator: Their hope is to
extricate the bones

in one single block of dirt,

leaving the full excavation for
a more controlled environment.

Kelso: The major questions
that occurred to me

when I first saw the remains,
"Why is it here?

Why is in with
the—in the trash?"

So next question,
"Well, how did this person die?

Who was this person?"

Narrator: The bones are
immediately brought

to the onsite laboratory.

Lavin: Tight temperature
and humidity controls,

uh, are necessary
in order to not cause

any further damage
to the human bones

that haven't seen
the air in... in 400 years.

We usually do the real fine
excavation of the, uh, remains

in the lab here at Jamestown,

using small picks and brushes,
being careful

not to do... put any marks
on the bones.

Narrator: Within hours,
the scientists come

to their first major conclusion.

They believe they
can tell the gender

of the person to whom
these remains belonged.

Lavin: Look at how thin
and slight this is.

Man: A young girl?

Yeah.

Around those two missing teeth,

which might speak to her qual...

You know, her health
at the time.

You can see the roots,
and everything

and how thin-walled that is.

That doesn't look healthy.

Woman: No.

Poor girl.

Straube: Uh, it had all
the characteristics

of being a female, which was,
uh, pretty exciting

because there weren't
that many women.

Narrator: The bones belong
to a young woman or girl.

Determining her identity
will haunt the scientists.

Who was she?

Straube: Quite early on,
we actually talked

about naming this young woman.

Uh, we thought this
would give her

her dignity and enable
her to tell her story

in a way that would
not turn people off

if... if we could personalize her.

Finally, we came upon Jane,

um, like, "Jane Doe."

Narrator: "Jane."
These are the remains

of the unnamed girl
who arrived in Jamestown

400 years ago.

The archaeologists are
beginning to untangle

the mysteries of Jane's life.

Summers: That summer,
the colonists managed

to plant a 7-acre stand of corn.

So at least they had
that meager supply

to live off of.

Narrator: But trouble
awaits the colony.

The entire crop of corn
is devoured

just 3 days after Jane arrives.

There will not be
another harvest.

One man might be able
to save Jamestown,

the legendary John Smith,
president of the colony.

Smith is a deeply practical man.

He trains the settlers
to farm, repairs the fort,

and trades with the natives.

Straube:
He organized work crews.

He had the first well dug.

He was someone
with the common sense

to get the, uh, settlers
through these...

These difficult times.

Straube: One story
about John Smith

that everybody knows is, um,
the story when Pocahontas

supposedly saved him
from being executed

by her father.

Narrator: The Pocahontas story
is at least partially true,

but not everyone in Jamestown
loves John Smith.

Summers: He's probably
exceeding his authority.

But he's simply kind of going
commando here

and saying, "You know what?

"This is what we're gonna do.

And I'm gonna
make you do it."

Some of the gentry
leaders accused him

of being vainglorious,
unworthy, ambitious.

He did not take kindly
to being told what to do

by his social superiors.

And of course, that led
to a lot of conflict.

In October of, uh, 1609 there is

a so-called accident where
an explosion takes place

with his gunpowder in a pouch,

and he's severely injured,

but I think it was no accident.

I think it was
an assassination attempt.

Straube: So John Smith left.

At his earliest
opportunity, he took

a ship back to England
to recuperate.

And he was never allowed
to return to Virginia.

Narrator: Just two months
after Jane's arrival,

Smith is gone forever.

Relations
with the Powhatan Indians

deteriorate quickly.

Horn: The English
really depended

on the Powhatans
for... for food supplies,

but the Powhatan, um,
had decided

that enough was enough.

With the spread
of English settlement,

uh, they no longer wanted
to support the English.

They wanted to get rid of them,

and so in the fall
of 1609, uh, they attack,

and they lay siege to Jamestown.

Narrator:
The settlers are trapped.

The Powhatans kill
anyone who ventures

outside the fort.

Summers:
For those inside the fort,

death awaits them
outside the walls.

This same fort that was
supposed to protect them

from the Spanish
and from the Powhatan has

now become a coffin,
and the people inside

are feeling hunger.

They're feeling the stress.

They're starting to break down.

There's sickness and starvation.

By November, they're
completely out of food.

Man as Percy:
All of us in Jamestown

began to feel
the sharp prick of hunger,

which no man truly described.

But he who had tasted
the bitterness thereof,

a world of miseries ensued.

Summers:
And there's also disease.

And we know today what's
causing that disease.

The wells are
polluted with E. coli.

There's things in this water

that are going to kill people.

Narrator: The water contains
not only deadly bacteria

but also traces of arsenic.

It's poisonous.

Horn: Bad water conditions,
disease swept

through the colonists.

300 individuals, um,
confined to the fort,

many of them sick.

We know that... that some
had the plague

when they arrived.

How is he doing?

He has fever.

Narrator: Jane finds herself
in a living nightmare.

Horn: With winter coming on
and with supplies

in a desperate state,
um, this was the fate

of the young girl
and other settlers,

uh, as they looked to the future

with no hope of resupply
from England any time soon.

Disease swept
through the settlers, uh,

during these months
the fall of 1609,

probably dysentery and typhoid,
intestinal diseases.

We know about this
because George Percy,

their commander, was
trapped inside the fort

with everyone else,

and he talked about the cholera.

He talked about the diseases

and what he referred to
as the "Starving Time."

Narrator: According
to the historical records,

the settlers are beginning
to eat anything.

Man as Percy: Having fed upon
our horses and other beasts

as long as they lasted,
we were glad to make

the shift with vermin,
as well as dogs, cats,

rats, and mice.

Straube: They have
no prospects of food.

There's nothing...
Nothing to eat,

so the monster
of hunger is loose.

Narrator: For Jane, hunger
changes everything.

What was once revolting
is now a secret prize

to be guarded carefully.

Straube: Things got very,
very bad very quickly.

Narrator: Jane is a witness
as death and disease grip

the colony.

Summers: She's a living,
breathing person

in a time period where
people are dropping

all around her.

Narrator: It seems she's come
to the New World

just to watch people die.

Horn: Over 3 out of every
4 of the settlers die

during the Starving Time.

Most of them are
dead by Christmas.

Over the next 6 months, some 240

of the roughly 300
settlers perish.

Straube: It would be hard
to hang onto hope seeing

all this, uh, happening
around you, people dying,

and then witnessing what people
have to do to survive.

Narrator: Most of the people
in Jamestown do not survive.

Summers: You're talking
about a siege.

You're talking
about fractured leadership.

You're talking
about a lack of purpose.

You're talking
about all the conditions

where civilization,
or the veneer thereof,

breaks down.

Come on! Get it!

When you're talking about Jane,

you're talking about
a teenage girl who is

in the midst of all this chaos.

People are going insane.

Narrator: The End of Days has
come to Jamestown.

Summer: In these conditions,
in this sort of

"Lord of the Flies" scenario,
anything is possible.

Even a murder at Jamestown
wouldn't be surprising,

considering the stress
everyone is under.

Narrator:
What will become of Jane?

In the Jamestown lab,
this question is

about to be answered.

I didn't see those before.

Man: Oh, yeah.

I don't know if those
are natural or not,

but that sure does
look like cut marks

or something.

Lavin, voice-over:
Upon excavation,

uh, the human remains, uh,

showed some telltale marks that,

uh, indicated trauma.

Narrator: Violent trauma.

Kelso: We've been working
at Jamestown for 20 years,

and we have found
over two million artifacts.

We've found over 80 burials,

and none of the burials
ex... showed any signs

of as much trauma
as we could see

just on this skull.

And you can maybe
see them better.

See, we have more
cut marks here,

one, two...

Kelso: My first idea was murder.

Could this be
the cause of death?

OK. 400 years later,
it's hard to know

in what sequence things happen.

Jane died and then
was hit very hard on her head,

or she was hit very hard
on her head and then died.

The one is murder,

and the other one is
something else.

May: It wasn't easy to
read Jane's bones.

They were telling us
very different things.

On the one hand, there
was serious trauma,

and if this happened
at the time of death,

we could be looking
at a homicide.

Uh, but on the other hand,
her bones were

telling us that she
was not in good health either,

uh, and she may actually
have been starving.

Lavin: I bet you there's
even more fine ones

like they saw on the...

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,

8, 9, 10, 11, 12,
13, 14, 15.

16. There may be 20-plus...

Wow.

Really fine ones right there.

Narrator: But the jawbone
with its unusual cut marks

is not the only strange clue.

In the summer of 2012,
the excavation

in the cellar slowly
and laboriously reveals

another bone.

It's a tibia, a shin bone.

It, too, is human,

a bone, in fact,
from a small person.

Man: Then when we
brought in the tibia,

it all started to come together,

uh, in my mind, anyways.

Narrator: The scientists suspect
this bone is somehow connected

to the jawbone they found.

The most crucial find
in Structure 191

is a cranium,
which probably also belongs

to the same set of remains.

May: Once the cranium
was excavated,

there's some marks on there
that are, uh, real unusual.

Uh, and we were able
to see some of that

during the excavation.

Uh, you could see that
there were some marks,

but until the soil was removed,

it wasn't really clear, um,

that these were, uh, such
big hack marks, basically.

Narrator: The 4 cut marks
on one side are clear

without any doubts,

and on the back,
something has chopped

right through the skull.

Lavin: Why would you have
marks on the front and the back?

Kelso: Jane's skull
obviously showed cut marks

on the forehead
and a heavier blow

to the back of the skull.

I really wanted to look
at it more closely

to see if perhaps this was sign

of a... of... of
violent death or murder.

We saw more and more marks
that were pointing

to a possibility even more
bizarre than murder.

Frankly, I was speechless.

We look at this,
and we're thinking,

"Wow! This could be evidence
of cannibalism."

Narrator: But this is not
the first time that word,

"cannibalism,"
has been heard here.

For 4 centuries,

dark rumors have
surrounded Jamestown.

Kelso: I've been reading
the—the historical records

that, uh, relate
to the early events

at Jamestown for... for 20 years.

I have personally
never believed them.

I thought they
were exaggerations,

and many historians dismiss
these documents, as well.

But George Percy's words
have now taken

on a new meaning.

Man as Percy: Now with famine
beginning to look

ghastly and pale in every face,

nothing was spared
to maintain life

and to do those things
which seem incredible,

such as to dig up dead
corpses out of graves

and to eat them.

Horn: And that's what we
think happens to Jane.

It must have been horrible,

and, um, I'm sure that,
uh, she welcomed death

when it came.

Narrator: But the scientists
want to know more about Jane.

What happened to
her after she died?

To find out, Bill Kelso
asks for help

from the Smithsonian Institution
in Washington, D.C.

We let the bones tell the story.

Narrator: Douglas Owsley is
one of the leading

forensic anthropologists
in the nation.

Owsley: I work with law
enforcement agencies

in the identification
of human skeletal remains.

I have worked on the, uh,
Branch Davidian compound

in Waco, uh, assisted
the identification

of men and women
that were killed

in the Pentagon plane crash.

Uh, one of my early cases was
Jeffrey Dahmer's first victim.

Over the years, I've
looked at approximately

100 different skeletons,

complete and partial skeletons
that have been found

on Jamestown Island.

I've never seen
in any of those others

anything like what we saw
in the Jane case.

Jane is... is totally unique.

Narrator: Just the photographs
sent from Jamestown give

Doug some vital
clues about Jane.

You can look at the teeth,

and when you look at the teeth,

you see that there's
a first molar.

Most people get them at age 6.

Second molar...
Most people get them at age 12,

and the third molars
aren't showing up here.

We don't see the third molars.

So they're still actually
still up in the sockets.

That's our best
indicator as to...

As to the fact that
we're dealing with someone

that's about 14 years
of age, a clue that

we're really dealing
with a... with an adolescent,

we're dealing with a teenager.

Narrator:
Jane's bones themselves

arrive in Washington, D.C.

Owsley, voice-over: Dr. Kelso's
team brought the package up.

Everything is very
carefully packaged.

We have about 2/3
to 3/4 of the cranium

and the lower jaw,

and we have part
of the leg bones.

The first thing that
just strikes you

when you see Jane's remains
are all of the numerous cuts

that are found on the bones,

cuts and chops.

Narrator:
What caused these marks?

What happened to Jane?

The story begins to materialize.

It's a story that's all
written in the bones,

especially in the cranium,

the most revealing
of the remains.

Karin Bruwelheide,
Doug's longtime associate,

will help explain.

Well, the first thing
that grabbed me is

when I saw the frontal.

You have these 4 striations.

They're very closely spaced.

They're all the same size.

They are really telling

because they are very parallel,

and because of that,
you know, then,

that the individual
wasn't moving

when they were made.

Um, you know, it's
just like analyzing
a forensic case.

If this individual was
alive, it would have

been struggling to
get away, presumably.

And so the fact that
they're all very nicely

aligned on that frontal
bone indicated to us

that she was already dead

when these cuts were made.

It's not a case of murder.

All of the chops that
we see, all of the dam...

Damage that we see
occurred after the death

of this young lady.

But then you shift
your attention to the back,

and that's where
really the force is.

As far as the opening
of the skull here,

I have a... a little bit
more sentimental,

uh, notion that
they would not have

wanted to see the face
of the individual.

If you're looking
at the person that

you're trying to butcher,

I think it would be more,

uh, amenable to... to turn
the face away from you

and to actually
concentrate, then,

on your objective.

Narrator: If the story
the bones tell is true,

the person butchering Jane
could not bear

to look at her face.

And the strikes are
coming down now,

and you can see that.

There are 4 clear
chops to the back

of the head that
gouges into the bone

about a distance
of two millimeters.

And it strikes once,
strikes twice,

and then another impact,

and this impact here
is even deeper.

Narrator: The gruesome
work is not easy.

And then there's another
really significant cut

that I think is the one
that in this whole process

actually completed the fracture.

It basically splits
through and cracks

the cranium at this point.

The skull was being split open.

The person who was doing
this would have been,

um, attempting to
remove the brain.

The brain is... is
rich in nutrients.

It's got lots of fat in it.

It's not uncommon, in terms
of 17th century diet

to... to include
animal brains
in food dishes.

Narrator: The terrible truth is,
the survivors were

forced to resort to cannibalism.

Straube; What we have
with Jane is what we call

"survival cannibalism."

Jane was eaten so that
the others could live.

Narrator: At least 3 people
were eaten in Jamestown

during the dark winter.

Further testing will reveal more

about Jane and the people
who ate her.

Doug wants to examine
her bones more closely.

Owsley: We start thinking
of how to best document

the cuts and chops.

We decided to work
with Scott Whittaker

in documenting the photographs

through stereo zoom microscopy,

magnification, if you will.

And we decided to use
scanning electron microscopy.

What magnification are we here?

So we are—we are
at about 16... 16 times.

So 16 times the original cut.

It's a strange type of cutting.

Instead of just going in
and forcefully slicing,

it's a sawing type
of motion, where they're

going back and forth,
back and forth numerous times.

When you look at this
under the scanning
electron microscope,

you can just see
how the blade goes up and down

and all around.

It's just a—it's a very
kind of inexperienced,

unusual type of dissection.

Owsley: So what's so
unusual to me

is this motion here,

where it's clearly
an up-and-down,

raking against,
up and down
the mandible,

and then losing the track,

going this way,
this way, all over.

Anybody who was skilled
in... in butchery,

in kitchen work...

Right.
wouldn't do
that at all.

What they're trying to
do is re... remove

those tissues
that have not only
the external skin

and dermis and underlying tissue

but also muscle underneath that.

It's patterning after
what you would do

in animal butchering.

It's just being
done very awkwardly.

Bottom line is that
the person really

didn't know how to use a knife.

So we also have to remember
that this is a little girl.

So we have to consider
that as we look

at these tool marks.

You know, these...
They're tentative.

They're not confident.

Um, you know, this is a person.

This is somebody they know.

Narrator: Jane's bones tell
us both how she was butchered

and how difficult it was
for the people

who performed the task.

Kelso: Were these people
really monsters?

No. I think they were
just normal people that had to...

Had to survive.

They were ordinary people
who were starving,

people like us.

Narrator: Modern technology can
tell us even more about Jane.

The Smithsonian team
uses a single tooth

to test the chemical isotopes
in her body.

Kelso: We know that,
uh, from the forensic,

uh, analysis that she was
a 14-year-old English girl,

probably from the south coast,

uh, based on stable isotope
tests of the teeth.

We can... we can know
that she's English

because, uh, the stable isotopes
tell us that she was raised

on wheat and barley,
the European, uh, foodstuff,

instead of corn,
which is American.

Narrator: The isotope tests
reveal that Jane only lived

in Jamestown
for a few months in 1609.

She arrived in August,
and she died that same year,

and then her flesh was eaten.

Horn: Many of these were
considered tall tales,

but now we know that...
That they're true,

that we have physical
evidence that shows us

that cannibalism did...
Did take place here

at Jamestown in this
Starving Time period.

Driven by insufferable hunger,
colonists were forced to do

those things that
nature most abhors,

eat human flesh.

Narrator: Jane's bones
serve as decisive physical
evidence of cannibalism.

May, voice-over:
With Jane, after 400 years,

we now have the body,

and the marks on her cranium are

the smoking gun.

Narrator: The scientists already
know quite a lot about Jane,

but one mystery remains.

What did she really look like?

Dr. Stephen Rouse,
forensic researcher

at the Smithsonian,

may help answer
that final question.

Rouse: Dr. Owsley brought me
in on this case because

of the experience
that I had in doing

the... the, uh, 3-D modeling
and reconstruction

on living people.

We're storytellers.

We tell stories based
in people's lives,

based in facts.

We wanted to do
a reconstruction
of this individual.

We wanted to see what
she looked like

and be able to convey
what we're seeing

in the bones to the public.

To do that, we needed
a complete skull.

We needed to be able
to rebuild back

with the entire skull
in order to do

a complete
facial reconstruction.

We needed to be able
to see not just

the right side, which
was more complete.

We needed to have
the left side
complete, as well.

That's all essential
steps in doing

a facial reconstruction.

If we were to mirror
this right now,

and by "mirror," what I'm
talking about is

I'm just taking this
piece and... and creating

a mirror image of it,
a mirror digital image,

because we want this to
look like a real person.

We want it to look like Jane.

In order to finish this story,
we needed to meet Jane.

We needed to see
what she looked like.

We had finalized the skull,

and that served as
a template for a forentic—
forensic sculpture.

Narrator:
They contact Ivan Schwartz,

who creates casts
of historical figures.

Building Jane's face
requires skills

in both science and art.

We received this, uh,
digitally reconstructed skull

of the... the girl who died more
than 400 years ago,

um... uh, whose skull was
in many, many pieces.

Narrator: Using the model,
the artist gets to work.

He begins to sculpt
a human face out of clay.

Schwartz: We had
two copies of this,

one as a reference
and one to actually work on

with all the, uh,
tissue depth markers in clay.

Narrator: The markers indicate
how deep to layer the clay

as the artist brings
the skull to life.

Tissue and muscles...
A face begins to take shape.

Finally, we can look
into her eyes.

4 centuries later, it's Jane.

Schwartz: I think that
this reconstruction

will give people a sense
of what people did look like

400 years ago.

Narrator: The reconstructed Jane
also opens a window

into the lives of the people
who lived and died

in the Jamestown of 1609.

And now, Jane lives on
as the focal point

of a public exhibition
at the Jamestown museum.

The reconstruction is the result

of collaboration
between scientists,

patient work with endless
attention to detail,

and today, visitors
can look at Jane

and understand her story.

Lavin, voice-over:
Archaeology has given Jane

a voice that she did not have.

Narrator: The surviving settlers
of Jamestown

discarded her remains.

They didn't even have
the strength to give her

a proper burial,

but that's what made it possible

to tell her story today.

Horn: Jane is one of a kind,

and the chances
of finding the remains

of a victim of cannibalism

are so remote
as to be unimaginable.

This is an astounding discovery.

From the tests we've
been able to do on her bones,

we now know more
about her than we do

of any other woman
during that early time period,

but now she is sort of
representing all those

young women who,
you know, very bravely

came to Virginia
in those early years.

Narrator: Jane could not have
known what awaited her

in Jamestown, just as we
never knew her until now.

Straube: Jane certainly puts
a face on the Starving Time,

especially a female face,

and we know so little
about the women who were here

in those... those early years.

Um, at first,
we just had a few bits

of bone, a skull,

but now, we've been
able to study it,

we've put her together.

We've done a facial
reconstruction.

She's able to tell her story.

And wow!
What a story.

Narrator: Jane was a girl
from the coastal plains

of England, just 14 years old.

She arrived one summer,
one face in a crowd of many.

The New World and her new life

stretched out before her.

Horn: To have physical
evidence that

cannibalism had taken place here

was an incredible find.

No other site,
archaeological site,

in any part of the Americas

throughout this entire
colonial period,

16th, 17th, and 18th centuries,

has ever come across,
uh, an example of cannibalism

from physical remains.

Straube: Jane tells us
a brutal story,

but it is heroic,
too, um, because

we can read in... in her bones

the kinds of things that
people had to go through

to establish, um, our country.

Narrator: We now know
much about her physical
life and death

but still nothing about what she
thought or felt

in those hard months in 1609.

Did she fear for her life?

She lived
through the worst of times,

hunger, disease,
violence, death.

Her remains show us
how hard it was to forge

a new nation
in the swampy malarial land

surrounding James Fort.

Horn: Jane... her story is not
the kind of, uh, view

that most Americans
have of our founding.

Where they might be thinking
of maybe one tough winter

but feasting with Indians

and getting through

and thereafter, uh, peoples
living in harmony,

the actual story is one that
is much, much tougher,

uh, and one
that carries tragedy,

but it's also a story
of great fortitude,

of great endurance,

and that, I think,
is the true story

of Jamestown and the beginnings

of early America.

Narrator: 400 years later,
Jane speaks to us.

She shares her story
of what life was like

in early America.

Announcer: The iconic moments
that have shaped our world.

Man: It stretches
human history way back.

Announcer: The fine line between
fiction and fact.

Woman: That legend
just doesn't stand up

against reality.

Announcer: Discoveries that
bring the dead back to life.

Forensics that create
clarity from chaos.

The past gets rewritten

when science
and history collide.

"Secrets of the Dead"
was made possible

in part by the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting

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