Apr 01, 2020 21:00:00

The misery of the 14th century plague pandemic in `` a large amount of human bones buried near a small village ''

by

Al Case

A mass grave was found in Lincolnshire, an agricultural area in eastern England, where at least 48 men, women and children were buried. In addition, traces of Yersinia pestis were found in the remains, and the plague that struck Europe in the 14th century caused serious damage in cities other than cities known to have caused massive deaths. I understand.

A Black Death mass grave at Thornton Abbey: the discovery and examination of a fourteenth-century rural catastrophe
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/black-death-mass-grave-at-thornton-abbey-the-discovery-and-examination-of-a-fourteenthcentury-rural-catastrophe/ E0CC072A347CD3E91116DFB5133505F5 /

Mass grave shows how Black Death devastated the countryside | Society | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/18/mass-grave-shows-how-black-death-devastated-the-countryside

Mass grave reveals how Black Death impacted rural England | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/mass-grave-reveals-how-black-death-impacted-rural-england/

The group that excavated the mass graves in Lincolnshire was a group of researchers such as archeologist Hugh Wilmot of the University of Sheffield, England. The research group was initially exploring the remains of Thornton Abbey in Lincolnshire for pure archeological research, not plague research.

Past research has indicated that there may be remnants of a medieval mansion on the grounds of Thorton Abbey, and the research group that initiated the study aimed to find the site. However, upon actual investigation, it was found that a large number of human bones were excavated. Moreover, since the human bones were uniformly oriented in the same direction, it was clear that many people died at once, not just a graveyard.

The following is a sketch of the mass graveyard excavated this time and the state of the burial restored from it.

Radiocarbon dating using the ratio of carbon-14 contained in the sample revealed that the mass grave was between 952 and 1404 with a 95% or greater probability. Silver coins minted between 1327 and 1377 have also been found as burial items.

Furthermore, analysis of a sample of molars revealed traces of molecules indicating that they were infected with Yersinia pestis, the researchers said.``The mass graveyard at Thorton Abbey was rampant in the United Kingdom between 1348 and 1349. The plague that killed about half of the total population. '

Once the cause of death was identified, the impact of the plague at that time was once again highlighted. First, human bones lay on top of other human bones, suggesting that the bodies were dense enough to touch when buried.

On the other hand, because all the corpses faced in the same direction and the shoulders of the ashes were turned inside, it was not a burial method of digging a hole and throwing the corpse as it was, but dying It is also presumed that it is highly likely that they were laid down in courtesy and respectful.

In addition, there should be basically only male monks in the monastery, but six out of 17 gender-identified bodies were female. Furthermore, because there are many remains that are presumed to be children's, the research team thought that what was buried in this mass grave is not secular people, but secular people who lived in local communities. I am.

Wilmot said, `` In the past, it was thought that while mass graves were created in densely populated places, in sparsely populated villages customary funerals were held in parish churches instead of local churches But in fact, mass graves are being built in churches near the village, indicating that when the plague spread, the previous social system had failed. ' Argued that the social turmoil in the country had spread to underpopulated areas.

As such, plague has left deep nail marks in human history, but it is not a disease of the past. In May 2019, Kazakh couple two people living in Mongolia, to death in the same bubonic plague and those that hit Europe in the 14th century incident occurred . Some are isolated as in contact with a couple of 118 people who received the administration of antibiotics, foreign travelers from Switzerland, Sweden, Kazakhstan, South Korea has seven was included is that of the. In the United States, 1 to 17 cases of plague have been reported each year since 2000.