Skeletal remains found in wreck of 18th-century pirate ship

Remains from 18th century discovered on shipwreck A team of experts is trying to identify the remains of at least six people found in an 18th century shipwreck off the coast of Mass.

TORONTO — A group of archeologists have uncovered the 300-year-old remains of at least six people at the wreck of a pirate ship off the coast of Massachusetts.

A team from the Whydah Pirate Museum says the remains are from a ship dating back to the 18th century that shares the institution’s name.

According to the museum, pirates stole the Whydah Galley ship and wrecked it during a violent storm.

Underwater explorer Barry Clifford and a team of experts from the museum will now study the remains hoping that they will provide more insight into the world of piracy.

"When the ship wrecked, it went onto a sandbar in this very ferocious storm in 1717, and the ship turned upside down and everything in the ship fell into the sand,” Clifford told CBS Boston on Wednesday. “It's like putting a penny on a snowbank in January. Where is it in July? It's on the sidewalk. Well, that's the same thing with this deep sand off the backside of the Cape in a place called the Graveyard of the North Atlantic.”

“There were so many shipwrecks there,” he added.

Experts believe the captain of the Whydah was a notorious pirate named Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy, who is regarded as one of the wealthiest pirates in history.

Clifford and his team previously obtained Bellamy’s DNA through a relative located in England. It is now being tested against a human bone found in the shipwreck.

The team hopes to identify all of the remains.