Bones shed light on 1755 Lisbon quake

"It's all helping to fill in the blanks," she said.

The remains included a black woman. Other evidence of Portugal's slave-trading past were bones from a monkey — presumably a pet — and small sea shells that constituted currency for buying slaves.

Many skulls had been crushed, probably by quake-struck masonry and timber beams.

From a glass cabinet in his office, Telles Antunes pulls out the skull of a child about 3 years old. A small, sharp stone still juts from the skull, indicating a fatal injury from a collapsed building.

Scientists also analyzed charcoal, partly melted medallions and sand that had turned into glass — all dug out of the grave. They deduced that temperatures in the post-quake fire reached 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

The dog-bitten thigh bone suggests animals scavenging for food. The knife marks on another human bone imply meat was scraped from it, though some experts say the evidence of cannibalism is inconclusive.

Authorities sent troops to restore order, begin the cleanup and deal with looters. Two round lead bullets were found in the mass grave, and one skull had what appeared to be a bullet hole.

"You can begin to imagine what a hellish time it must have been," says Telles Antunes.

Experts arrived at the estimate of 3,000 by extrapolating from what was found. Only a small part of the mass grave was excavated, and part of it is viewable by the public under glass.

"What we've found out so far is just the tip of the iceberg," says Cardoso, the archaeologist. "They'll still be researching this find long after I'm gone."

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