CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 24Archaeology and ancient environmental studiesForensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology StudiesHistorical and Cultural Archaeology Studies

“Men, Women, and Children Starving”: Archaeology of the Donner Family Camp

Dixon, Kelly J., Novak, Shannon A., Robbins, Gwen, Schablitsky, Julie M., Scott, G. Richard, Tasa, Guy L.·2010·American Antiquity
DOI 10.7183/0002-7316.75.3.627
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

In spring of 1846, the George and Jacob Donner families and some 80 traveling companions began their overland trek to California. When the party ascended the Sierra Nevada in late October, a snowstorm forced the group to bivouac. At this point, the train became separated into two contingents; the larger party camped near Donner Lake and the smaller group—including the Donner families—settled at Alder Creek. Though written accounts from the Lake site imply many resorted to cannibalism, no such records exist for Alder Creek. Here we present archaeological findings that support identification of the Alder Creek camp. We triangulate between historical context, archaeological traces of the camp, and osteological remains to examine the human condition amid the backdrops of starvation and cannibalism. A stepped analytical approach was developed to examine the site’s fragmentary bone assemblage (n= 16,204). Macroscopic and histological analyses indicate that the emigrants consumed domestic cattle and horse and procured wild game, including deer, rabbit, and rodent. Bladed tools were used to extensively process animal tissue. Moreover, bone was being reduced to small fragments; pot polish indicates these fragments were boiled to extract grease. It remains inconclusive, however, whether such processing, or the assemblage, includes human tissue.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.7183/0002-7316.75.3.627

Cites

130 of 130 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Despite recurrent mention of the Donner Party and the Alder Creek camp as classic examples of survival cannibalism, there is no osteological evidence of these supposedly cannibalised human assemblages.

    “Despite the recurrent mention of the Donner Party and the Alder Creek camp (California, US, 1846-1847) as classic examples of survival cannibalism, there is no osteological evidence of these supposedly cannibalised human assemblages (Dixon et al., 2010;Ellis et al., 2011;Novak, 2011)”

    From The Archaeology of Cannibalism: a Review of the Taphonomic Traits Associated with Survival and Ritualistic Cannibalism (2025) · cites this paper as Dixon et al., 2010

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 54

  1. Teggart, 1910, Diary of Patrick Breen, One of the Donner Party, 1846–1847
  2. Pepper, 1920, Pueblo Bonito
  3. Schablitsky, 2003, Revisiting the Donner Party at Alder Creek: Archaeological Research Design
  4. Wyatt, 2005, Scanning Electron Microscope Analysis of an Archeologically Significant Slate
  5. Read, 1974, Alive
  6. Todd, 1961, Abandoned
  7. Scott, 2005, Analysis of Lead Bullets and Other Lead Artifacts from the Donner Party Camps
  8. Owsley, 1995, Computerized Format for Analysis of Commingled Human Remains from the American Plain and Great Basin
  9. Swords, 2006, School as Usual: Examinations of Writing Slate Fragments Excavated from the Donner Party's Alder Creek Camp
  10. Schablitsky, 2006, Burning Ring of Fire: Interpreting Life in the Donner Party Camp
  11. Owens, 1991, Historical Roads and Trails in California: A Cultural Resources Planning Study, Volume 1: Historical Context and Typology
  12. Mullen, 1997, The Donner Party Chronicles
  13. Markley, 1999, A Metal Detector Survey of the Donner Camp Historic Site, Tahoe National Forest: the 1993 Field Season
  14. Markley, 1993, Tahoe National Forest Donner Camp Archaeological Project 1993, July 19–23, 1993: Research Design and Work Plan
  15. Gilbert, 1973, Mammalian Osteo-Archaeology: North America
  16. Kamler, 2004, Surviving the Extremes: A Doctor’s Journey to the Limits of Human Endurance
  17. Lopez, 1973, The Highest Hell
  18. 1847, [Article describing the Donner Party events in the eastern Sierras of northern California] 10 April
  19. Fisher, 1927, The Famine in Soviet Russia 1919–1923
  20. Enlow, 1956, A Comparative Histological Study of Fossil and Recent Bone Tissues, Part I, Texas Journal of Science, 8, 405
  21. Buck, 1994, When Is a Trail an Emigrant Trail? From Verdi to Dog Valley: a Truckee-Donner route revision
  22. Becker, 1996, Hungry Ghosts
  23. Villa, 1988, Physical Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology: Their Interaction in Different Cultural Contexts in Europe from the Late Upper Paleolithic to the Beginning of the Historical Times, 39
  24. Markle, 1849, Personal Diary of John Markle
  25. Dixon, 1996b, Heritage Resource Inventory of the Crystal Fire Rehabilitation Project (Historic Site Evaluations)
  26. Enlow, 1958, A Comparative Histological Study of Fossil and Recent Bone Tissues, Part III, Texas Journal of Science, 10, 187
  27. Bradley, 1987, Comment on “Toward a Critical Archaeology”, Current Anthropology, 28, 293
  28. 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1212(200001/02)10:1<27::AID-OA503>3.0.CO;2-M · DOI
  29. Hardesty, 1990, Archaeology of the Donner Family Camp
  30. 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1212(200001/02)10:1<65::AID-OA505>3.0.CO;2-6 · DOI
  31. Mahli, 2006, Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of Donner Party Archaeological Remains
  32. Leslie, 1988, Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls
  33. Lawrence, 1951, Post-Cranial Skeletal Characters of Deer, Pronghorn, and Sheep-Goat with Notes on Bos and Bison
  34. McAllister, 2001, Collector’s Guide to Feather Edge Ware
  35. Hough, 1902, Ancient Peoples of the Petrified Forest of Arizona, Harper’s Monthly, 105, 897
  36. 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1212(200001/02)10:1<76::AID-OA506>3.0.CO;2-# · DOI
  37. Reed, 2006, An Analysis of the Psychological, Emotional, and Spiritual States of the Donner Party
  38. Enlow, 1957, A Comparative Histological Study of Fossil and Recent Bone Tissues, Part II, Texas Journal of Science, 9, 186
  39. Boyde, 1984, Airpolishing Effects on Enamel, Dentine, and Cement: Assessment of Clinical and Laboratory Applications, British Dentistry Journal, 156, 287
  40. Stewart, 1962, The California Trail
  41. Dixon, 2006, Without Fires for Days: A Human Portrait of the Donner Party
  42. Thornton, 1986, Oregon and California in 1848
  43. Houghton, 1911, The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate
  44. Outram, 1998, The Identification and Paleoecoftomic Context of Prehistoric Bone Marrow and Grease Exploitation
  45. Robbins, 2006, The Donner Family Campsite Bone Assemblage: Histology and Species Identification
  46. Reichs, 1998, Forensic Osteology: Advances in the Identification of Human Remains, 353
  47. Dixon, 1996a, Donner Camp Salvage Project
  48. Turner, 1983, Carnivores, Human Scavengers and Predators: A Question of Bone Technology, 219
  49. Tasa, 2006, The Donner Family Campsite Bone Assemblage: A Challenge in Identification and Quantification
  50. Schmitt, 1988, The Zooarchaeology of Times Square Rockshelter, 444
  51. Kamler, 2006, The Donner Party: A Medical Doctor’s Perspective
  52. Schmid, 1972, Atlas of Animal Bones for Prehistorians, Archaeologists and Quaternary Geologists
  53. 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1212(200001/02)10:1<4::AID-OA502>3.0.CO;2-Q · DOI
  54. Curry, 2002, Case of the Colorado Cannibal, Archaeology, May-June, 50

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Dixon, K. J., Novak, S. A., Robbins, G., Schablitsky, J. M., Scott, G. R., & Tasa, G. L.
Affiliations
  • University of Montana (US)
  • Syracuse University (US)
  • University of Oregon (US)
  • University of Nevada, Reno (US)
ORCID
Scott, G. Richard
Venue
American Antiquity
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2010-07
Volume
75
Issue
3
Pages
627-656
ISSN
  • 0002-7316 (ISSN-L)
  • 2325-5064
DOI
10.7183/0002-7316.75.3.627
OpenAlex
W2317468734
Semantic Scholar
ce7e1e4543ddf1ed08d823c1f45e2150339dfc2e
Cited by
24
References
130
Citations by year
2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 1
FWCI
0.91
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 2395 d)
Locations
American Antiquity (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology › Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Anthropology › Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies
Keywords
Donner Party, cannibalism, bone histology, zooarchaeology, wild game, bone reduction, skeletal remains, Sierra Nevada

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review