Mystery of British bodies found trapped in Arctic ice finally solved 178 years later
Let's have it right: DNA science is one of the greatest legacies of humankind.
178 years after their freezing-cold deaths, four expeditionists aboard Captain Sir John Franklin's infamous HMS Erebus and HMS Terror have finally been identified.
Per the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports and Polar Record, it's been revealed how anthropologists from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Waterloo recently used skeletal DNA and compared it with samples submitted by living descendants of the many fallen sailors.
Rewinding back to April 1848, Erebus and Terror had been locked in the Arctic ice for close to two years and so the 105 remaining survivors (down from 129 crew and officers) fled the frozen water fields for land in a desperate attempt to reach safety — all while lugging boats, sleds and supplies.
Advert
Nobody from the trip made it home.
The new reports document how a quartet of mystery dead men now have names, having caused much debate for over a century among the nautical and scientific communities.
"Three of the sailors we have identified are from HMS Erebus, and they all died at Erebus Bay," said the university's adjunct professor of anthropology, Dr Douglas Stenton.
"The fourth, the only sailor from the HMS Terror to be definitively identified by DNA analysis, was found 130 kilometers away."
Hypothermia, starvation, lead poisoning, disease and exposure are each widely accepted as likely causes of death, although in 2007, award-winning author Dan Simmons retrofitted a horror story around the expedition's fate for his novel The Terror.
US network AMC adapted The Terror into a series too, starring Ciarán Hinds, Jared Harris and Tobias Menzies.
The fellow discovered far away from the others was Captain of the Foretop on HMS Terror, Harry Peglar.
"It was interesting to conclusively identify this sailor because the body was found with almost the only written documents from the expedition ever found," commented Dr Robert Park, professor of anthropology at Waterloo.
As for the mysterious trio to also be successfully identified, they are: able seaman William Orren, boy 1st class David Young and John Bridgens, subordinate officers' steward.
"For the living descendants, these findings provide previously unavailable details regarding the circumstances and locations of their relatives' deaths, as well as the identities of some of the shipmates who died with them," Stenton added.
This particular research squad is on quite the run, having identified HMS Erebus engineer John Gregory with living descendant aid five years ago.
In 2024, Erebus captain James Fitzjames was also a new name for the list of bodies found, although his remains suggested cannibalism took place, unlike the others.
Dan Seddon