Medieval plague mass grave discovery in England

This video from England says about itself:

Digging Thornton Abbey Plague Pit

30 November 2016

When our Archaeology students discovered a medieval plague pit buried under the grounds at Thornton Abbey it was a huge surprise – but we weren’t unprepared…

Hugh Wilmott from The University of Sheffield Department of Archaeology takes us around the dig to explain how we understand and record such an incredible find, Diane Swales highlights the ancient DNA analysis lab work into Black Death that can tell us about those who fell to the disease and PhD student Pete Townend shows the 3D and GPS tech that’s helping us locate and map finds.

Read more about our work at Thornton Abbey plague pit on The University of Sheffield website here.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Gruesome evidence of Black Death’s abbey visit

Wednesday 30th November 2016

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered almost 50 skeletons of Black Death victims — more than half of them children — at a 14th-century monastery in Lincolnshire.

The mass burial pit at Thornton Abbey, near Immingham, is said to be extremely rare. It contained the bones of 48 victims, a team from Sheffield University said yesterday.

The presence of such a large burial site suggests that the community was overwhelmed by pandemic and unable to cope with the number of dead.

The Black Death spread throughout Europe from 1346 to 1353. Estimates of the death toll range from 75 million to 200m people.

The disease is documented to have reached Lincolnshire in 1349.