No April Fools Joke Today

Amazing world we live in. I am cursed. I don't have a one track mind. I find just a universe of things interesting . . . including the universe, of course. But this time the story is pretty earthbound. So much in fact, that it's lain buried under the earth for hundreds of years until just recently. Here's the gist of it:

Twenty-five skeletons were uncovered in London’s Charterhouse Square in Farringdon during Crossrail construction works in March 2013. It provided the first evidence of the location of London’s first Black Death emergency burial ground established in 1348.

As a historian, anything like this trips my trigger. And I keep hoping that the archeologists will get better and better at finding old stuff and unearthing it so we can learn more about where we've come from. (What I really wish is that the bottom of the ocean could be scoured for all the treasure of knowledge that lies there. But we're a long way from that.)

Here's a couple pictures that'll give you a real good idea of what this dig looks like.

Remarkable Find

Closer Look

Apparently this burial ground is of great historical importance to London, so a huge amount of research has been done on the skeletons. From their teeth, scientists have found "traces of the DNA of the Yersinia pestis bacterium." This was the bug responsible for the Black Death. They have also determined that the burials occurred in two phases: 1348-50 and in the early to mid-1400s.

The site of the burial is just outside the city walls, and the site is named after the Charterhouse that was built next to the burial site to pray for the dead that were buried there. That former monastery is still there, largely hidden behind high walls, and you can book occasional tours to have a look around inside.

Amazing.

Source: Here