Lead Scientists Give Briefing
On January 12, lead scientists involved in the symposium released preliminary data from recent archeology findings at one of the two winter encampment sites used by the Donner Party. The research results led quickly to a nationally published, Associated Press story with headlines like "Findings say Donner Party didn't resort to cannibalism," and "Lack of cooked bones at campsite a surprise."

The real story is that an analysis of a very small sampling of tiny bone fragments from the Alder Creek location, which is six miles from Donner Lake, did not turn up any human bones. This finding is important, but it does not prove definitively that cannibalism was absent among the snowbound pioneers living at Alder Creek. The scientists involved in the on-going, archeological study made no such conclusive claims. To date, only 30 out of nearly 16,000 bone fragments have been analyzed. But the media blasted away setting the stage for more confusion and misinformation, a problem that has plagued descendents and historians for nearly 160 years.

Many books and historical accounts have been published about the California-bound emigrants who were trapped east of the Sierra Nevada by early winter storms in 1846. The research results presented at the Sacramento symposium, hosted by the Society for Historical Archeology, hopefully dispelled some of the rumors and mysteries associated with the Donner event and replaced them with physical evidence and historical facts.

Ongoing Archeology at the Donner Encampments
• 1980s and 1990s
Professor Donald Hardesty, a University of Nevada-Reno anthropologist, led excavations during this period. At that time Hardesty proved that members of the Donner-led wagon train did camp at the east end of the lake. But in October 1846, upon their approach to the wall of granite at the west end of Donner Lake, the pioneers became separated. They set up survival camps at two different locations, best known as Donner Lake and Alder Creek.



In the early 1990s Dr. Hardesty excavated the ground at the base of the iconic "Donner tree" at Alder Creek, roughly six miles north of Donner Lake, but he found little evidence that any pioneers had camped there for a prolonged period of time. The lack of artifacts forced historians and the U.S. Forest Service to acknowledge that the revered tree did not indicate the location of the Donner family campsite.

Hardesty's frustrated crew expanded the search area and with the help of a metal detector survey, they soon discovered 19th century human artifacts about 200 yards away from the tree. Unfortunately, the project ran out of time and money before Hardesty could pursue the new leads. However, his extensive research resulted in the book "The Archeology of the Donner Party," published in 1997 by the University of Nevada Press.

• 2004 and 2005
Kelly Dixon is today a co-leader of the forensic research team working on the ongoing Donner project. She is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Montana, and she specializes in historical archeology of the American West. Dixon and her colleagues are following up on the work of Professor Hardesty.

During the summers of 2004 and 2005, Kelly Dixon and co-leader, Julie Schablitsky, a historical archeologist at the University of Oregon's Museum of Natural and Cultural History, led a team of physical anthropologists and forensic specialists in work at the Alder campsite. They sought to determine whether or not the newly discovered campsite (200 yards from the Donner tree) is truly that of the two actual Donner families. The project was funded by The History Channel. Dixon has already appeared in a Discovery Channel program, Unsolved History: The Donner Party.

During the Alder Creek digs, the team discovered the remains of a hearth, a very important find, as well as fire-cracked rock, pipe bowl fragments, tiny pieces of bone, including charred bone, lead balls, and ceramic fragments. The artifacts were technically dated to be from the appropriate time period (mid-1800s), and the evidence of a fire hearth led the scientists to conclude that this, indeed was most likely a Donner family campsite.

Dr. Hardesty said, in Sacramento: "This absolutely adds more credibility to the interpretation that this is where the Donner families camped," he said. "The artifacts they found are similar to what we found in 1990 and 1993."

DNA for Archeology Work
New forensic technologies may lead the researchers into breakthrough territory. Schablitsky notes "Ten years ago, we didn't have the technology we have today. Ground-penetrating radar wasn't common and DNA analysis wasn't being used for archeology. We can do so much more now."

Shannon Novak, an assistant professor of anthropology at Idaho State University, examined the bone fragments and found many of them were sawed, chopped and cut, "suggesting extreme desperation and starvation among the group."

There are limitations, however, to what the new skills and equipment can reveal. Virtually all of the 16,000 fragments recovered to date are smaller than a fingernail in size. All of the pieces have suffered environmental degradation and many are too small to study effectively with current technologies. DNA analysis doesn't work well on the old bone material due to its exposure to temperature extremes, soil acidity, and a climate pattern of very wet and very dry conditions (winter vs. summer) at the site for 160 years!

Hi Tech Applied to Bone Fragments
Scientists used scanning electron microscopes to study 30 of the larger pieces in a search for human bones that had been boiled (pot polish), an indicator of cannibalism. They were able to identify bones from horses, oxen, deer and dog, as well as rabbits and rodents, but no human bones were identified. The variety of animal bones at the Alder Creek campsite does suggest that the stranded pioneers there may have had more food available than previously thought.

The anthropologists admit that based on the accounts that they had read, they definitely expected to find human remains among the animal bones, but to claim that no cannibalism occurred at the Alder Creek site based on these results is a conclusion that some find premature.

Perhaps Jack McShane, a University of Montana graduate student and member of the Alder Creek research team, best summed up where we stand now: "Historically it's been said people resorted to cannibalism, but it's yet to be proven through archeology. It's possible that cannibalism [at Alder Creek] never happened."

Mark McLaughlin is a weather historian who lives on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe.