The colony of Roanoke suffered from a zombie plague

The argument

This is a speculative explanation, advanced without physical evidence, and its proponents present it as a possibility that accounts for features of the Roanoke case which other explanations leave open. The suggestion is that the colonists of Roanoke Island could have been the victims of a remarkable phenomenon, a zombie plague. Its appeal to those who entertain it lies not in the mechanism, which is unverified and has no documented precedent, but in the shape of the disappearance it is offered to explain. Three features of the case are cited. The first is speed and completeness: the colonists vanished swiftly and entirely, rather than dwindling in the way a settlement failing through starvation or gradual departure would. A rapidly transmitted condition affecting an entire population is at least the right shape of event to produce that pattern. The second is the absence of evidence of conflict. A leading alternative explanation involves a skirmish with local Native Americans, but such an encounter would be expected to leave physical traces, and the lack of evidence tied to any skirmish is treated by proponents as counting against it. The third is containment. Whatever befell the colony did not spread beyond it, and as Roanoke was an island, proponents argue that its geography could explain why the infection was contained to just this locale. No part of this account rests on recovered remains, contemporaneous testimony, or any documented instance of the phenomenon it proposes. On this unverified account, proponents nonetheless hold that the lost colony of Roanoke disappeared due to a zombie plague.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Zombies are not real, rendering this theory impossible. Moreover, it is much more likely that the colonists resorted to home-grown cannibalism, rather than suffering from a zombie plague. John White returned to England in the first place because the colonists were starving, and Roanoke Island was experiencing the worst drought in 800 years. A Harvard archaeologist, Lawrence Stager, allegedly found indications of cannibalism on the site, perhaps revealing the settlers’ desperation.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise appeals to an agent for which no evidence of any kind exists, and an unexplained disappearance is not explained by proposing a cause never observed anywhere; the absence of signs of a skirmish is equally consistent with the colonists having left, which is what the "CROATOAN" carving found at the site indicates. [Rejecting P2] Containment on an island is a prediction the theory makes rather than evidence it has met, and the documented circumstances — a colony already short of food, in a period of severe regional drought — supply an account that requires nothing unprecedented.