Skeletons of four doomed Franklin Expedition sailors identified with DNA

Skeletons of four doomed Franklin Expedition sailors identified with DNA

Briefly

"The expedition was a multiyear effort to find the Northwest Passage—an ice-free path connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Arctic. Led by British explorer John Franklin, the expedition involved two ships, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror. Over the course of their voyage north, both vessels became trapped in ice off King William Island in the Canadian Arctic."

"Franklin himself died in 1847. And in 1848 the remaining crew—105 men—decided to try to walk across the sea ice from the island to the Canadian mainland. They all perished. It must have been horrible, says Douglas Stenton, an archaeologist at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. It was probably 30 [degrees] Celsius [22 degrees Fahrenheit], and these men were not healthy after three years in the Arctic."

"Researchers have used DNA from the skeletal remains of four members of the ill-fated 1845 Franklin expedition to explore the Arctic to identify the dead for the first time. Denton is lead author of a new study in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports that identifies three of the dead found on King William Island: William Orren, an able seaman; David Young, a first-class boy seaman, class, who had been 17 when he signed up for the voyage; and John Bridgens, a subordinate officers' steward."