While excavating areas for London's Crossrail project, which aim it is to establish a 118km long high speed rail link with 37 stations all over London, bodies were found deeper in the ground.
It was known that there is supposed to be a burial ground somewhere outside of the city of London, but the exact location was never found. Now, 13 bodies have been found in an 5.5 m shaft. Pottery, probably from the mid 14th century was found very close to the bodies. Researchers believe, the bodys belong to the time of the "Black Death", which was a pandemic in the 14th century. Further analysis will help discover the plague. The skeletons DNA may help investigate the development and spread of the bacterium, which killed thousands and thousands of people. The dead bodies were laid in 2 neat rows which leads us to believe that these skeletons are from the earliest era of the Black death, before the bacterium had developed completely.
Archaeologists from the Museum of London will continue digging in order to discover even more. These findings are on of UK'S largest archaeological ventures and they weren't even discovered on purpose. "We've found archaeology from pretty much all periods - from the very ancient prehistoric right up to a 20th-Century industrial site, but this site is probably the most important medieval site we've got," said Jay Carver, project archaeologist for Crossrail.
He also believes, that this is on of "the most significant discoveries" made in a long time. It is very significant because of the data which it provides, not only the location of the burial ground but also the bacterium's DNA. They can then study the plague which killed thousands and thousand of people in London.
I personally can't believe that we still keep finding evidence of epidemic plagues from the 14th century. Those bodies have been laying in the ground for over 500 years now and yet we still haven't found all the evidence. This article makes me think about how much more there is undiscovered in the world we live in. We keep thinking we have found out everything and created everything, but archaeologists and chemists and scientists keep finding new evidence, which is just unbelievable.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21784141
Antonia,
ReplyDeleteI agree. It is just fascinating as well that they can actually check the body to see if there is DNA of the bacterium of the black plague, but it also makes me a bit nervous whenever we bring back something from the past into the laboratory.
This is really interesting! Though while reading I was thinking the same as Mrs Medenica. I'm not saying that we'll have the plague again, but still
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