London rail project unveils a medieval bubonic plague graveyard in the middle of the city
A section of rail project for the London Crossrail had to be halted when archaeologists discovered a huge cache of ancient human skeletons that seem to be a hastily put-together body pit for victims of the Black Death around 1349. There could be as many as 50,000 individuals scattered across the site.
In a press release, Crossrail’s lead archaeologist Jay Carver said “we will be undertaking scientific tests on the skeletons over the coming months to establish their cause of death, whether they were Plague victims from the 14th Century or later London residents, how old they were and perhaps evidence of who they were. However, at this early stage, the depth of burials, the pottery found with the skeletons and the way the skeletons have been set out, all point towards this being part of the 14th Century emergency burial ground.”
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