Starvation? Probably. Cannibalism? Eh, not so much.

As mentioned in an earlier post, Gwen Robbins Schug of Appalachian State led a study of hearth remains at a Donner Party camp and found no evidence of cannibalism, although the rendering of fat from animal bone fragments is consistent with starvation. The paper - Men, women, and children are starving: the archaeology of the Donner Family Camp - has been published in the July issue of American Antiquity