Museum lecture studies Donner Party
Researchers at the University's Museum of Natural
History speak on their studies of the Donner family
BY CHARLIE HANSEN
FREELANCE REPORTER
The Museum of Natural and Cul
tural History presented a lecture dis
cussing the ill-fated journey of the
Conner family and the possibility of
cannibalism Friday night in Lillis Hall.
Museum Research Associate Julie
Schablitsky and Museum Osteolo
gist/Archaeologist Guy Tasa an
chored the event titled “Reconstruct
ing a Tragedy: The Archaeology of
the Donner Family Camp.” The two
were shown last fall in an episode of
Discovery Channel’s “Unsolved His
tory,” which documented a team of
archaeologists and its attempt to find
the Donner family campsite.
In 1846, a group of 81 people led
by George Donner left Illinois for Cal
ifornia to seek a better way of life. Af
ter taking a shortcut, the Donner Par
ty was stranded in the Sierra Nevada
Mountains when an early blizzard
occurred. Possibly starving, it is spec
ulated that the Donner Party resorted
to cannibalism.
The Donner Party erected two
campsites, the main campsite at Don
ner Lake. Artifacts found at Alder
Ranger District of
Tahoe National Forest
may be from the other
campsite, where the
Donner family stayed
along with a group of
teamsters. If the arti
facts are indeed from
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she hopes to learn more about the
events of that winter.
“Our goal is to figure out what
happened during those three to four
months,” she said.
Some of the artifacts found at the
site may confirm the Donner family’s
presence.
“One piece of evidence that may
show the Donners were at Alder
Creek is the presence of women,”
Schablitsky said. "We found pieces of
beads and writing tablets.”
Writing tablets may have been
used by Tamzene Dormer, a teacher,
to help normalize the situation with
her and George s children. She may
have been teaching them to read and
write.
The issue of the Donner Party and
cannibalism spread across the coun
READ MORE ONLINE
To read more about ‘Unsolved
History,’ the Discovery Channel
documentary that featured two
University professors, visit
dailyemerald.com.
try in tne late i»4Us as
( newspapers often de
scribed the Donner Party
as a crazed group of peo
ple seen eating humans.
Regardless of whether
cannibalism happened at
the Donner family camp,
Schablitsky wants to
present tne uonner party as more nu
mane.
“They were not animals who just
cannibalized each other, they were
human beings,” Schablitsky said.
Tasa’s job is to find out whether
bone fragments found at Alder Creek
are indeed human. That is no easy
task considering there are over
25,000 pieces of bone smaller than a
paper clip. Some of the fragments
have been sent away for DNA testing
to find out if they are human.
“We have good evidence cannibal
ism occurred at the main campsite,
but at the Alder Creek campsite it is
unknown,” Tasa said. “All the materi
al we have found so far has been
mammalian bone. ”
The lynchpin evidence for canni
balism is if the bones are burnt,
botched, or broken. Tasa said that the
pieces of bone fragments found so far
are all burnt heavily. Tasa also said
the majority of the fragments are
Class V bones, which could include
deer, bear and human.
It will be some time before the
gaps are filled in on the four months
of winter the Donner Party struggled
through, but both Schablitsky and
Tasa are confident it will be done.
Schablitsky said they would not be
working with the media, as they did
on the Discovery Channel, even
though they would receive funding.
Schablitsky said the media would
rush them through their work and
that the team wants to take as much
time as they need.
Charlie Hansen is a freelance
reporter for the Daily Emerald
IN BRIEF
Festival of Bands on
University campus
High school marching bands
from across the Northwest con
verged on campus Saturday to
participate in the 26th annual
Festival of Bands.
A total of 29 bands played in
the festival, which is the Oregon
Marching Band’s primary
fundraiser.
Of the 29 bands, 24 were from
Oregon high schools, four were
from Washington and one was
from California. Three of the
bands were from the
Eugene/Springfield area.
The festival consisted, of a
competition between bands and
several clinics as well as an exhi
bition performance by the Ore
gon Marching Band.
The Oregon Marching Band
performed a medley of music by
George Gershwin in honor of
veterans and those currently
serving in the military.
— Gabe Bradley
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Severe climate changes indicate
significance of global warming
Human influence causes rising Arctic temperatures,
melting glaciers, thinning sea ice, higher sea levels
BY JOHN HEILPRIN
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Scientists say
changes in the earth's climate from
human influences are occurring par
ticularly intensely in the Arctic re
gion, evidenced by widespread melt
ing of glaciers, thinning sea ice and
rising permafrost temperatures.
A study released Monday said the
annual average amount of sea ice in
the Arctic has decreased by about 8
percent in the past 30 years, resulting
in the loss of 386,100 square miles of
sea ice — an area bigger than Texas
and Arizona combined.
In the past half-century, average
yearly temperatures in Alaska and
Siberia rose by about 3.6 to 5.4 de
grees and winters in Alaska and
western Canada warmed by an aver
age of 5 to 7 degrees.
With “some of the most rapid and
severe climate change on earth,” the
Arctic regions' melting contributed to
sea levels rising globally by an aver
age of about three inches in the past
20 years, the report said.
“These changes in the Arctic pro
vide an early indication of the envi
ronmental and societal significance
of global warming,” says the Arctic
Climate Impact Assessment, a four
year study by 300 scientists in eight
Arctic-bordering nations.
A comprehensive study of Arctic
warming adds yet more impetus to
the projections by several climate sci
entists that there will be a steady rise
in global temperature as the result of
greenhouse gases released into the
atmosphere from the burning of fossil
fuels and other sources.
“The bottom line is that the Arctic
is warming now, much more rapidly
than the rest of the globe, and it's im
pacting people directly,” Robert
Corell, chairman of the scientists’
study panel and a senior fellow with
the American Meteorological Society,
said Sunday.
The process is only likely to accel
erate in the Arctic, a region that pro
vides important resources such as oil,
gas and fish, the study finds.
That would wreak havoc on polar
bears, ice-dependent seals, caribou
and reindeer herds — and local peo
ple such as Inuit whose main food
source comes from hunting those an
imals. Some endangered migratory
birds are projected to lose more than
half their breeding areas.
The study projects that in the next
100 years the yearly average tempera
tures will increase by 7 to 13 degrees
Fahrenheit over land and 13 to 18 de
grees over the ocean.
Since it takes decades if not cen
turies to reverse warming from car
bon dioxide, methane and other
greenhouse gases, some damage is
inevitable, though longer-term im
pacts could be “reduced significant
ly” by cutting emissions globally this
century, the study says.
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