While excavating for the London Crossrail project, which is a nearly 25 billion dollar railway system that will connect the east and west sides of the city, archaeologists discovered a major burial site that they think contains victims of the Black Death.
The Black Death killed millions of people all over Europe, including a large percent of the population in England. The plague swept over the area for a period of 18 months during the 14th century
While excavating for the London Crossrail project, which is a nearly 25 billion dollar railway system that will connect the east and west sides of the city, archaeologists discovered a major burial site that they think contains victims of the Black Death.
Historical records say that thousands of bodies were buried in two mass graves outside of London, one had been found previously, but the exact location of the other grave was a mystery until now.
Jay Carver, Crossrail's lead archaeologist is quoted as saying:
"Taking tiny sub-samples from the skeletons and applying ancient DNA analysis to those has allowed us to identify the DNA of the pathogen Yersinia pestis which caused the plague and still carries on today to cause the plague." [Crossrail Project]
Radio carbon dating also confirms that the remains are from the two periods when the devastating outbreak occurred.