Hearing about the Franklin Expedition today and some of the theories regarding its failure and the crew’s deaths caught my attention. Particularly lead poisoning. In the documentary “Buried in Ice”, it was clear that high lead concentrations were one of the researchers’ most convincing pieces of evidence regarding the cause of the expedition crew’s deaths. Contrary to this, we learned that while the levels of lead in the crew’s remains, while high, were normal for the time period and lifestyle, and non-lethal.
After hearing this, I became more interested in the decisions made by the expeditionary force. The fact that there were dozens, if not more sightings and encounters with local Inuit people, and the expedition crew did not seek any assistance from them, was puzzling. I attributed it to the reduced mental function or fatigue caused by lead poisoning. Equally as odd, there has been no evidence that the crew adapted in any way to local conditions, or used local survival techniques.
A couple theories arose addressing these points. The first, claims that rather than lead poisoning causing the poor and unwarranted decisions of the crew, their simple incompetence as survivalists coupled with a harsh arctic environment caused their bizarre journey and untimely deaths. To me this theory remains odd due to the encounters with local populations. Even without survivalist knowledge, one would think that they would know when to ask for help, especially in such dire circumstances.
Next is the idea supporting lead poisoning. Research shows that Great Britain and surrounding Europe did in fact use dangerous amounts of lead, and poisoning was common in the 1800s. This is also supported by the even distribution and concentrations of lead in the Franklin Expedition crew’s remains. In this scenario, the reason for the crew’s poor decisions throughout their journey, including cannibalism, fell solely on the mental damage and inhibition caused by lead within the ship’s food and storage.
On a separate note, we touched on the importance of archaeology in class today, and were given the example of Teotihucan. Although Dr. Watrall is not as much concerned with the shiny artifacts or excitement of discovery as the context, perspective, and information gained through archaeology, that is what interested me initially and prompted me to pursue it. I was never concerned that the world would run out of artifacts or sites to discover, but instead with the thought that we would hit a wall in regards to our ability to gather information, and begin to accept what information we already have as the complete truth. The brand new discoveries in Teotihucan, a site that we have studied for so long, says to me that that wall doesn’t exist, and that we will continue to question circumstances and explore further, possibly only due to that excitement of discovery and strive for knowledge.
I also found the possible factor of lead poisoning during the Franklin Expedition to be interesting. When this topic was brought up in “Buried in Ice,” I immediately thought of the decline of Rome. In my high school Latin courses, my teacher mentioned that the majority of Rome’s pipes were made up of primarily lead-based substances, and that this was a contributing factor to the fall of Rome. After the lecture today, though, I am starting to question the premise of widespread lead poisoning. If lead ingestion supposedly affected the judgement of Roman leaders, wouldn’t the empire have collapsed much earlier? I’m not exactly sure what amount of lead consumption constitutes a dangerous level, so I can’t really make an exact decision on where I stand regarding the matter. It is interesting to think, though, that such a small factor may have contributed to one of the most defining periods in human history. On the other hand, if mass lead poisoning turns out to be a non-contributing factor, several other hypotheses may prove to be skewed as well. The fact that the crew of the Franklin Expedition was extremely inexperienced on land seems to be a more plausible cause for their demise, so perhaps lead poisoning in a Roman context should be dismissed also. Even though other theories may make more sense, it is still difficult to determine exactly what happened when it comes to events that occurred so far in the past. So hey, even though lead poisoning may not be plausible now, doesn’t mean that more evidence will never be found to confirm its role in these two separate instances.
I agree that the idea that the people in the Franklin Expedition didn’t ask the Inuit people for help is very strange. I wonder if they didn’t want to ask for help because their mission was held with such a high esteem. The English were obsessed with finding a Northwest Passage for a long time before the Franklin Expedition. Maybe they thought that if they asked for help it would be proof that they had failed in their mission. But it seems like once anyone got as desperate as they did, they wouldn’t hesitate to get help. It’s also very weird that Franklin wrote the one note that said that all was well after members of his crew had died, his ships were stuck in ice, and then that he died a year later. Was he really so committed to the mission that he couldn’t admit that they had failed? It makes me feel like the lead poisoning argument must have been at least a little right. Franklin and his crew don’t seem to have acted in the way a normal person would when faced with such a problem. I’m honestly amazed that they survived as long as they did. Some people survived for a couple of years after they first arrived. It was two years before they even abandoned the boats. That’s a long time to be in the Arctic especially when you are an inexperienced Arctic explorer. Add on irrational thinking coming from lead poisoning and it’s remarkable that they lived as long as they did in such an unforgiving place.