Museum of London's Skeleton Key to the Bodies Under City's Streets

Times Online ^ | 06.28.2008 | Jack Malvern

[Coffee200am]

snip...Tens of thousands of skeletons that lie hidden beneath the streets, houses and offices of London have been revealed for the first time on a map, in a collaboration between the Museum of London and The Times.

snip...Another skeleton was found with a metal spike lodged in its spine. Its owner, a man who was buried in Smithfield, East London, in about 1350, was probably hit with an arrow or spear, but the attack did not kill him. He survived only to catch bubonic plague in his late thirties or early forties. “Somehow the injury didn't cause an infection,” Mr White said. “The body has reacted by building bone around the projectile. He survived for months or possibly years. He was found in a large plot of land set aside for burying victims of the Black Death.” It is not known why the man was attacked, but it is thought that he may have been a soldier in the Hundred Years War.

snip...“At Christchurch in Spitalfields they found someone with smallpox scars in soft tissue. They dropped it and ran away. They sent it to one of the two laboratories in the world that can deal with smallpox.” The labs said that smallpox spores were present, but not enough to be a danger. It is now routine to rebury unbreached lead-lined coffins without opening them in case the disease that killed the occupant is still a threat.

[calex59]

Ok, they open up graves that have been buried of hundreds, if not thousands, of years and wonder why some germs might still be around? What idiots.

Ok, lets start a small pox epedemic in london by opening all these old graves!

What dumb as****.

[leda]

interesting, in a very creepy way....

[patton]

Life expectancy for folks in London during the Black Death was 16.

Think about that - you had kids at 12, buy the time they were 4, they were orphans.

[leda]

pretty amazing that a 4 yr old orphan
actually lived to 16 then, isnt it?

[realdifferent1]

"She turned me into a newt".

"A newt?"

"I got better..."

[patton]

Not only thast the kid did, but that the kid went on to also become a mother or father at 12.

I wonder how many generations that lasted?

[IronJack]

I don't think that's the way life expectancy is calculated. It's more a measure of how many died young. If a lot of people died in infancy, for example, it would lower the life expectancy. But that doesn't mean that the average person only lived 12 years; it just means that if you averaged out the lifespans of every person born, it would come out to be about 12 years.

It's a common misconception.

[ConorMacNessa]

We bury our own with reverence and with the expectation that their remains will be undisturbed, yet we despoil the graves of our forebears with alacrity. I find this disturbing.

[Dumpster Baby]

Harvesting diabolical biological agents from frozen Arctic explorers who died of plague is a standard plot device in all kinds of thriller novels. I've got several of them myself in my pile of paperbacks.

[kalee]

GGG ping

[patton]

“But that doesn’t mean that the average person only lived 12 years; it just means that if you averaged out the lifespans of every person born, it would come out to be about 12 years.”

Care to think that one through again?

I understand what you are trying to say - that some died minutes after birth, and others lived to the ripe old age of 30, so it averages to 16.

But what you said is not what you think you said.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Ok, they open up graves that have been buried of hundreds, if not thousands, of years and wonder why some germs might still be around? What idiots. Ok, lets start a small pox epedemic in london by opening all these old graves! What dumb as****.

This qualifies for a "Hold muh Beer" alert.

[Vermont Lt]

I always got into that argument with the lifespan of our customers (not their real life, but the time they were customers.) Some measured it in terms of how long “dead” customers had been with us. I always measured the average time that a current customer had been with us.

I always think the proper metric is something like a median lifespan—where half the people live longer, and half die earlier.

[SIDENET]

This qualifies for a "Hold muh Beer" alert.

"Hold me ale."

[IronJack]

Actually, I said exactly what I meant. The average LIFESPAN might be 12 years, but that doesn’t mean the average PERSON only lived 12 years. The distinction is subtle, and whatever the limitations of the semantics, I think you know what I mean.

[patton]

So, which person, in your calculus, didn’t have a lifespan?

If a person has a lifespan of 30 years, he has lived longer than average, no?

Clearly, the average PERSON did not.

Take your shoes off, count on your toes, maybe it will come to you.

Probably not.

[Charlespg]

Archaeologists exploring a graveyard at St Pancras stumbled across a coffin containing a mysterious set of bones. They were later identified as belonging to a walrus. An explanation for the animal's dignified burial has not yet surfaced.

What? LOL

[ExGeeEye]

Headstone shaped like a “bukkit”?

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

“The labs said that smallpox spores were present...”

How can we survive against germs like that?

Unbelievable.