"• Many of the skeletons appear to suffer signs of malnutrition and 16% had rickets.-----
• There is a high rate of back damage and strain indicating heavy manual labour.
• The later skeletons from the 1400s had a high rate of upper body injury consistent with being involved in violent altercations.
• 40% grew up outside London, possibly as far north as Scotland - showing that 14th Century London attracted people from across Britain just as it does today."
Read more on the BBC: Black Death Skeletons Unearthed by Crossrail Project
Image from Den of Geek
4 comments:
"When the disease known as the Black Death or the Great Pestilence arrived in London in the mid- 1300s, it wiped out more than half of the population" ... as for the entire continent.
The Wikipedia page about the plague talks about it in chronological order. It is truly terrifying.
Fascinating article. Thanks for bringing it to us. I wonder how teeth and skeletal remains can indicate someone grew up outside London. Dietary differences?
Steve, if they were from Scotland their bones were plaid.
To answer Steve:
When your teeth are being formed the various proportions of minerals unique to your locale (as appearing in vegetables and meats grown in that local) are incorporated in similar proportions in your tooth enamel. So they can tell where a person was likely born and spent their early childhood years. Also, bone mineral content can provide evidence of region later in life.
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