Colonial settlers in Virginia ate their own to survive

The "starving time" of 1609-1610 for early English settlers in historic Jamestown was so brutal that some members of the settlement resorted to cannibalism, according to new findings by the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and Preservation Virginia.

The discovery of a 14-year-old girl's skull that had been hacked at with a variety of implements -- ostensibly to access tissues -- conclusively proves cannibalism, said experts. A forensic analysis of the damaged skull "is absolutely consistent with what we see in cannibalism," said Douglas Owsley, head of physical anthropology at the Smithsonian.