DNA Reveals Identity of Officer on the Lost Franklin Expedition—and His Remains Show Signs of Cannibalism

In 1845, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror departed from England under the command of Sir John Franklin. The seasoned polar explorer and his crew of 128 other men were searching for the Northwest Passage, an elusive shortcut through the Canadian Arctic between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The ill-fated expedition ended in disaster, with Franklin and all of his men perishing. Though the exact circumstances of their deaths remain a mystery, experts believe some combination of scurvy, starvation and exposure contributed. (Lead poisoning, which was long the leading theory, probably didn’t kill the men.)

Researchers have located some of the explorers’ remains in the Canadian Arctic, but they haven’t been able to identify individual crewmembers until recently. In 2021, a team extracted DNA from a skull and identified John Gregory, an engineer aboard the HMS Erebus.

Now, the scientists have used DNA to identify a second crewmember: James Fitzjames, a captain on the HMS Erebus. They reported their findings this week in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

To confirm Fitzjames’ identity, scientists in Canada extracted DNA from a preserved molar, which was connected to a jawbone found at King William Island, Nunavut. They compared that DNA with samples provided by 25 living descendants of the expedition’s crew. One was a match: a second cousin of Fitzjames, five times removed.

Now that they know the jawbone belonged to Fitzjames, the researchers can also draw some harrowing conclusions about what happened in the men’s final days. Fitzjames’ jaw—and many other crewmembers’ bones—are etched with cut marks consistent with cannibalism.

This suggests that Fitzjames died while at least some other sailors were still alive and that even officers weren’t spared from cannibalism. “Neither rank nor status was the governing principle in the final desperate days of the expedition as they strove to save themselves,” says study co-author Douglas Stenton, an anthropologist at the University of Waterloo, in a statement.

The Franklin expedition continues to fascinate people, with many books, TV series and documentaries speculating about what might have happened. Research shows that “the true story is just as interesting and that there is still more to learn,” says study co-author Robert Park, also an anthropologist at the University of Waterloo, in the statement.

What historians do know is that, after the two ships left England in May 1845, they sailed across the North Atlantic Ocean to Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic. In late July, a whaler reported seeing the ships in Baffin Bay.

After that, the vessels seemingly vanished into thin air. Between 1847 and 1859, more than 30 search missions attempted to find the men and their vessels, but none were successful.

A turning point in the search came in May 1859, when a note was discovered in a cairn on King William Island. Dated April 25, 1848, and co-signed by Fitzjames, the document explained how the Franklin expedition had spent the winter of 1845-46 on Beechey Island in the Arctic Archipelago. Once summer arrived in 1846, the ships headed down Peel Sound but had become trapped in sea ice off the coast of King William Island.

The men were forced to abandon the ships and spent the winters of 1846-47 and 1847-48 on the island. Franklin died on June 11, 1847.

The surviving crew members planned to try to reach the Back River on the Canadian mainland. But they never made it.

Indigenous Inuit people told searchers that they had seen evidence of survivors having resorted to cannibalism. The new findings underscore the importance of their testimony, Treena Swanston, a biological anthropologist at MacEwan University in Canada who was not involved in the study, tells New Scientist’s Jeremy Hsu.

Archaeologists later found three graves on Beechey Island, as well as human remains at sites on King William Island. One of the King William sites contained 451 bones that belonged to at least 13 sailors including, as researchers now know, Fitzjames.

Both ships were uncovered within the last decade. In 2014, Canadian archaeologists found the HMS Erebus near King William Island. In 2016, they found the HMS Terror nearby. In recent years, archaeologists have recovered or imaged artifacts from both ships.

Despite the new revelations about Fitzjames, many more questions remain unanswered. For example, who was in charge as more and more officers died? What was the group’s plan? And what happened that caused some of the men to resort to cannibalism, a practice they would have found abhorrent?

“It was very desperate measures that some of the men took—and sadly, it only prolonged their suffering,” Stenton tells the Guardian’s Leyland Cecco. “It’s an incredible level of desperation that they must have endured.”

Fitzjames’ remains have been returned to a memorial cairn on King William Island, along with the bones of other sailors who died there. A commemorative plaque marks the site. Meanwhile, researchers are still soliciting DNA samples from relatives of the crew members, in hopes of identifying additional remains.

Sarah Kuta | READ MORE

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.