Human remains from the 1845 Franklin expedition revealed that a crew member was cannibalised on the ship.
The Franklin Expedition was a mission led by Captain Sir John Franklin to explore the Arctic that didn’t go as planned. Both ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, as well as their crew, became icebound for over a year, which left 12 men dead.
The survivors who then planned to continue to Canada were believed to have disappeared and perished.
Researchers have used DNA analysis to find some of the remains on King William Island in Canada, where the survivors had intended to set off.
The remains found were of James Fitzjames, who took the lead of HMS Erebus following the death of Franklin.
Dr Douglas Stenton, the study’s co-author said: “Rank and status counted for nothing once survival instincts kicked in.”
In 2013, a team of scientists from the University of Waterloo and Lakehead University excavated the site, which contained 415 bones believed to have belonged to at least 13 crew members.
The jawbone of Captain Fitzjames was among the 415 bones discovered.
They were found to have a series of small cuts, which indicated to the researchers that the bones had been butchered for meat and that Captain Fitzjames, as well as at least three other bodies, had been eaten.
Robert Park, co-author from the University of Waterloo, said: It demonstrates the level of desperation that Franklin sailors must have felt to do something they would have considered abhorrent”.
Scientists are now calling for any descendants of sailors from the expedition to see if their DNA can be matched to any of the others left on the island.