The grave, discovered in a remote corner of rural Lincolnshire, has been dated to the 14th century, almost certainly to the
earliest and deadliest medieval outbreak of the disease in 1348-9.
It contained the bodies of at least 48 men, women and children who were laid in a sandy pit within days of each other. DNA tests on the bodies found the plague pathogen, confirming how they died.
About half the population of England was wiped out within 18 months by the 1348-9 pandemic. Perhaps surprisingly, however, direct archaeological evidence for the Black Death is extremely rare, according to
Hugh Willmott, senior lecturer in European historical archaeology at the University of Sheffield, who led the excavation.
While a small number of plague mass graves have been
excavated in London, he said, nothing comparable has ever been found in a rural context, making this a discovery of national importance. Analysis of
the find, made in 2013,
has been published for the first time in Antiquity.
While the layout of the bodies showed they had all been buried within a period of days, said Willmott, they had not been flung without ceremony into a shared pit. Instead, the victims – more than half of whom were children – were shrouded and laid carefully side by side.
“They are trying to treat them as respectfully as possible, because in the middle ages it’s very important to give the dead a proper burial. Even though it is the height of a terrible disaster, they are taking as much care as they can with the dead.”