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鈥檚 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,鈥� Clifford told on Wednesday. 鈥淚t'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.鈥�
鈥淭here were so many shipwrecks there,鈥� he added.
Experts believe the captain of the Whydah was a notorious pirate named Samuel 鈥淏lack Sam鈥� Bellamy, who is regarded as one of the wealthiest pirates in history.
Clifford and his team previously obtained Bellamy鈥檚 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.
