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The coronavirus has already claimed thousands of lives, and most recently, even the Wuhan Hospital director who had been working hard to save human lives has succumbed to the virus.
This isn’t the first time that humans have experienced so many lives being lost in such a short time period. According to a new study, the remains of 48 people were found at a Black Death mass grave site at Thornton Abbey that was previously unknown.
When the Black Death swept through England between 1348 and 1349, almost half of the entire English population lost their lives.
They became so overwhelmed that they had to resort to mass grave sites in larger Medieval cities in order to contain all of the bodies, and until recently, smaller rural communities weren’t known to have them.
In the new Black Death mass grave, the 48 people found are believed to have been buried over just a few day’s time, and great care was taken to wrap each person in a burial shroud. They were also arranged in a manner that didn’t allow for overlap.
The study’s author noted that “To a society that valued ‘a good death’ above all else, the universal expectation would have been for the dead to be interred individually and with full church rites.”
The journal, Antiquity, released results of the study on Tuesday. It detailed the findings of the mass grave.
The authors of the study claim that “later medieval Black Death cemeteries are surprisingly rare in England. The mass grave at Thornton Abbey is set apart from other 14th-century examples by its rural location and monastic association.”
Researchers think the victims fled from overcrowded cities in search of hospitals in smaller towns. Sadly, they ended up dying there instead.
Teeth recovered from the site were found to contain Yerisinia pestis DNA, which is the pathogen for the Black Death.
“Medieval hospitals were religious institutions that provided a variety of services to the needy,” the researchers said.
These services included “assisting pilgrims, providing alms to the poor and helping the sick and dying.”
Talk about built-in funeral insurance!
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Researchers believe that the grave may be even larger than it appears. It could potentially contain even more Black Death victims.
Out of the 48 bodies, many were from one to 45 years old at the time they died. The majority were between the ages of one and 17. No babies were found, but researchers say the softer remains may not have been preserved.
Those who lived in smaller towns took their duties seriously, despite how dark the time period was.
“Although this reflects an acute historical tragedy, it also provides hitherto unseen details about the response of a small rural community to the devastation caused by the arrival of the Black Death,” wrote the authors of the study.
“The Thornton Abbey mass grave adds significantly to an understanding of the most deadly pandemic of the last millennium to have affected Europe.”
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