13 August 2020 - MEDIEVAL BURIAL SITE FOUND UNDER CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY

MEDIEVAL BURIAL SITE 

FOUND UNDER

 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY

G'day folks,

We are constantly finding all sorts of burial sites around the world, and this one is a beauty.

This story is fascinating and it will make you wonder what is buried underneath your house. In London, under Cambridge University, archeologists have discovered something that doesn’t sit well with most people. More than 1,000 human remains were found in a mass burial site. The large, medieval hospital, burial ground was discovered following an archeological dig under the Old Divinity School at St John’s College.  

Archeologists were aware of the burial site’s existence but didn’t know how big the site was until now. This discovery is crucial as it gives new insight to the life and death of the people during the medieval Cambridge.  Some researchers believe the Cambridge University burial site was used for the poor during the 13th-15th centuries.

There are over 400 perfectly preserved skeletons that were once buried without coffins leading archeologists to believe the people buried there were too poor to afford a proper burial.

 The massive dig was led by Dr Craig Cessford from Cambridge University’s archeology and anthropology department and a team from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit.

 

According to Cessford, he states “The excavation of four hundred complete and partial in situ burials from the Hospital of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge, represented one of the largest medieval hospital osteoarchaeological assemblages from the British Isles,”

 The hospital, which is connected to the burial ground, was created in 1195 as a place to take care of the sick.

The Cambridge University burial site dig is going to be beneficial to archeologists and researchers to be able to examine the bodies and get a better understanding of the people during that time. The bodies found are dating from the 13th to the 15th centuries, creating new evidence of a life that hasn’t been researched too much until now. 

Clancy's comment:  Amazing, eh? I'd love to be there and watch as they uncovered remains.

I'm ...