Donner, party of 84... 83... 82...

[Johnny_L.A]

The Donner Party may not have resorted to cannibalism.

The Donner Party… may not have eaten each other after all…

Detailed analysis of the bones instead found that the 84 Donner Party members consumed a family dog, “Uno,” along with cattle, deer and horses. Cattle, likely eaten after the animals themselves died of starvation, appear to have been their mainstay…

No human bones were identified.

“What we have demonstrated is that there is no evidence for cannibalism,” said Robbins. “If the Donner Party did resort to cannibalism, the bones were treated in a different way (such as buried), or they were placed on the hearth last and could have since eroded.”…

The survivors, 11 men and 36 women and children, fiercely denied the allegations…[O]ne man, Lewis Keseberg, filed and won a defamation suit…

If true, so much for the joke in the title!

[Jackmannii]

The Wikipedia article (which includes questions raised in the new publication) also discusses accounts of cannibalism revealed in interviews with survivors.

And one wonders - with 39 deaths in the Donner Party, how come no human bones were found in the latest investigation? Surely they didn’t pack out all the corpses when the party was rescued.

[Gatopescado]

The joke is safe.