Buck-&-ball at Jamestown??!!

[Wes/Tex]

Was watching the tube last night and found a program on PBS entitled "Secrets Of The Dead". The particular program dealt with the history of the Jamestown site and it's mysteries. They seemed to come to the conclusion that all the mysterious deaths, etc. were a result of arsenic poisoning and not poluted water, then went on to speculate if it was all a Catholic plot...boring! Anywho, the one skeleton they unearthed had a large lead ball in the femur, just below the knee! There were also several small balls called both "shot" and "pellets", so since they didn't actually show them, it's hard to figure just how big they were. They did some shooting with a matchlock to try and duplicate the wound and you could see additional holes in the target which seemed about #00 size. The final conclusion was that the young man, aged about 20, was shot from over 8 feet away...boy, did that help a lot! Did think it interesting that a buck-&-ball load was used in Virginia at that time. Wonder to what extent the same load was used at that time in history?

 

[SquirrelsaurusR]

...the one skeleton they unearthed had a large lead ball in the femur, just below the knee!

I hope these aren't the same guys that do the forensics programs...

 

[Wes/Tex]

Not much to do forensics with. They need tissue to find out the details for sure but got some reading for arsenic from a tooth. Still, the ball was found stuck into the shattered femur along with some smaller balls but didn't show them for size comparisons. Even did an execution of somebody who broke the rules with a shot from the matchlock.

 

[Russianblood]

...the one skeleton they unearthed had a large lead ball in the femur, just below the knee!

I hope these aren't the same guys that do the forensics programs...

I hope not either because below the knee is the tibia. the femur is above the knee. :rotf:

 

[SquirrelsaurusR]

I was wondering who would figure it out first.
Russianblood takes home the trophy. :grin:

And these guys are making TV specials to educate us? :shake:

 

[Wes/Tex]

I hope not either because below the knee is the tibia. the femur is above the knee. :rotf:

Oops! You got me. Knew that but had a case of the "duhs". Feel like the poster-boy for CRS most of the time!! :shocked2:

 

And these guys are making TV specials to educate us? :shake:

Don't count on getting an education from the history channel! They are as much in the entertainment business as MTV.

I am usually more impressed with what the history channel "experts" do not know than the information they missleadingly supply. They are almost as bad as reenactors.

Even the journals of the survivors of the bad years knew that the brackish, foul and filthy water was their downfall, along with starvation.

Arshnic was probably present in he remains of most of the dead at Jamestown! It was the most popular treatment for syphilisis until penicillin came along. They used it like modern "chemo", giving the patient just enough not to kill them hoping it would kill the disease while the patient recovered.

 

[jderrick]

I've heard that a treatment for syphillis some years later was mercury, and that they can actually track the campsites of Lewis and Clark's expedition by where they find the mercury concentrations.

Don't know, personally. Never tried it.

 

[Templar]

I did my archaeological field school at Jamestown and I can tell you that the musket balls tended to be either .65/.69 up to about .75.

The "buck" looked to vary between 0, 00, and 000 in size.

JR's leg was mangled, badly. Both the ball and the buck did incredible damage.

It was an incredibly interesting experience. Chain mail, jack, and plate armor was all in evidence. There was also evidnce of Scottish dirks having been there.

Anyway, yes, buck and ball loads were very common.

 

[ChrisPer]

I think judging an archaeologist by the TV program about his work would not be very fair...

I read 'Martin's Hundred' and loved the story. Real life, real problems in two different centuries. Also it recognised the real difficulties in making a good documentary.


BUT the documentaries these days really, really get me down. They seem to deliberately remove the facts and knowledge that inspire the viewer, and replace them with dumb and dumber computer graphics.

I think of one about wolf packs, that used a cad grid in '1970s Screen Green' to make the wolves' behaviour look like military weapon systems targeting stuff; and the National Geographic search for the Afghan Girl that appeared on the cover 20 years ago, with a commentary so inane I was boggling anew at every needless repetition of the words Afghan Girl; or the lighthouse special that put up a wave impact model in a physical experiment, then utterly failed to tell or show us anything of interest whatsoever about the design or what the model showed. Is it asking too much to get an IQ above 66 in a screenwriter?

 

[Audubon]

William M. Kelso and Ivor Christian Noel Hume come from two different archaeological generations and worlds. Both are great in their own right but not a fair comparison.

And don't confuse public history with historic(al) archaeology.

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