Discover 48 mysterious bones about 'black death'

British archaeologists have found 48 skeletons in a mass grave, dating from the 14th century.

British archaeologists have found 48 skeletons in a mass grave, dating from the 14th century.

According to Daily Mail, more than half of the 48 bones that have just been discovered are children. The skeletons were discovered by a group of archaeologists at the University of Sheffield (UK) at the monastery hospital at Thornton Abbey, near Immingham, North Lincolnshire.

Of the 48 skeletons, there are bones of both men and women and 27 bones of children. According to archaeologists, this shows that these people are victims of a pandemic. They believe that the number of people died after the massive "black death" epidemic in Europe in the 14th century.

Picture 1 of Discover 48 mysterious bones about 'black death'

48 skeletons related to the "black death" plague from the 14th century are considered very rare.(Photo: Daily Mail).

The "black death" plague is an infectious disease of animals and humans, caused by Yersinia pestis bacteria . This disease is also known as Bubonic plague . "Black death" devastated the European population from 1345-1353 with the estimated number of victims ranging from 75 million to 200 million.

Daily Mail said teeth from bones were sent to McMaster University, Canada to extract ancient DNA.

Archaeologist Hugh Willmott from the University of Sheffield said: "Although the current estimate indicates that up to half a million people are killed in the" black death "epidemic, mass graves are related to the epidemic. is extremely rare ".

Dr. Willmott said that when the pandemic broke out, the ancient people were often forced to dig emergency burial sites to handle a large number of the bodies of those who died from the epidemic.

Picture 2 of Discover 48 mysterious bones about 'black death'

Yersinia pestis bacteria causes "black death".(Photo: Daily Mail).

Dr. Willmott added that the discovery of these 48 skeletons helped to understand the difficulties faced by the ancients when a small community was not well prepared to deal with such a pandemic.

However, according to him, finding these skeletons was amazing but it was only representative of the end of their lives. Meanwhile, what we really care about is their life before they die.

"One of the ways we can connect with that is through the everyday objects they leave."

Picture 3 of Discover 48 mysterious bones about 'black death'

Tooth samples from skeletons will be removed to ancient DNA extraction.(Photo: Daily Mail).

He said: "Once these skeletons are excavated and taken back to the lab, we will begin to understand who these people really are. We will determine whether they are male or female, children. Then we started to learn about the kind of disease they had suffered, such as rickets, but if it was plague, we had to resort to ancient DNA analysis. "

Update 17 December 2018
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