Oh, surely not. I saw several stuffed specimens on a visit to, IIRC, Colorado last millennium. Never spotted one in the wild, though.
-
Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more
Historical Mysteries
- Thread starter SpuriusMaximus
- Start date
Helen
Implicitly explicit
There's a youtube video by Milo Rossi/Miniminuteman about Roanoke, quite interesting - Rossi is not to everyone's taste, but he knows what he's talking about. No real mystery, according to him; the settlers were most likely assimilated into a local Native American tribe, when life on the island was no longer sustainable.
Skeptical Greg
Agave Wine Connoisseur
It was sustainable for the Native American tribe.
Then again, assimilated might be a euphemism.
Last edited:
Thermal
August Member
...who were on a nearby island, not the same one.
The Croatoan were friendly, so not likely them, and not much damage to the settlement, indicating a battle. And I recall reading somewhere that the descendents of the Croatoan tribe keep showing up with blue eyes, indicating quite a bit of that recessive trait in their gene pool (not possible with a lone blue eyed contributor).
Pretty much looks like they were facing famine/disease and got fed up and high tailed it to the nearest friendly people, possibly expecting to return shortly to the settlement when the threat passed, which they obviously didn't.
One more for the Roanoke disappearance not being much of a mystery. Sure, we aren't certain what happened but they were failing and sent to get help from England, and none came. By the time anyone did, it was 2 or 3 years later, they found the message about Croatan but didn't investigate. I think it's near to certain they ended up with the Croatan and were assimilated. Violence seems unlikely, as Thermal said, there were generally friendly and the Colonists packed up everything they owned. It wasn't all burned down and there weren't any other signs of violence. Maybe some other tribe violently attacked the Croatan though.
And smallpox. There was an epidemic around 1615 that killed up to 90% of the natives. Likely anyone who had any knowledge of what happened died.
ETA: It was contemporaneous with the Spanish Armada, it wasn't much of a priority for anyone in England either.
And smallpox. There was an epidemic around 1615 that killed up to 90% of the natives. Likely anyone who had any knowledge of what happened died.
ETA: It was contemporaneous with the Spanish Armada, it wasn't much of a priority for anyone in England either.
Last edited:
Thermal
August Member
Yeah, there's nothing spooky about the abandonment of the settlement, even if we don't know exactly what prompted it. The settlers hit the road presumably because one of the many many things that could go bad for an isolated settlement happened.
The thing is, things were already going bad, that's about all we know for sure. Aside from food shortages, there were also more hostile Natives than not in the area.