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.