Posted on 12/03/2013 7:02:34 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Archaeologists have found a mass grave close to one of Britain's favourite cathedrals.
Bones from 18 bodies have been discovered by Durham University experts during building work at the Palace Green Library, part of the World Heritage Site in the historic city centre.
At first it was thought the bodies were buried in Durham Cathedral's medieval cemetery which was bigger than the current burial plot.
But further examination revealed an unorthodox and intriguing layout to the bodies which archaeologists say is proof of a mass burial.
Richard Annis, senior archaeologist, Archaeological Services Durham University, said: "We have found clear evidence of a mass burial and not a normal group of graves.
"The bodies have been tipped into the earth without elaborate ceremony and they are tightly packed together and jumbled.
"Some are buried in a North to South alignment, rather than the traditional East to West alignment that we would expect from a conventional medieval burial site."
Further research will be carried out on the remains, which will be tested to show their age. This will happen in the New Year.
Mr Annis added that no definitive interpretation could be offered at this stage in the investigation, saying: "The process of post-excavation processing, examination and analysis is essential to allow us to draw proper conclusions about this group of human remains.
"It is too early to say what they may be."
Once the bones have been examined - with permission from the Ministry of Justice - they must be reinterred at an approved burial ground.
(Excerpt) Read more at belfasttelegraph.co.uk ...
We’ve had 84 in New Mexico recently. I believe all but a few died.
I wasn’t joking when I said the CDC burned down the houses.
It is nasty stuff. Here, they said it was from breathing the crystallized urine of mice carrying the disease (likely in forced-air heating ducts). Burning the house makes sense, if the infection was vectored by mice—there is no way to remove the urine from the building with any certainty.
I thought they determined the Indians died from small pox. Small pox was also killing most of the people in Europe at that time.
Smallpox didn’t help things but the initial body blows were hantavirus, probably local. See link at post 15.
Squanto’s people had already had contact with Europeans. Squanto had already been to Europe. That’s how it is that he knew English.
The Indians didn't have any defense against a host of diseases that arrived with the Europeans.
“Squanto had already been to Europe. That’s how it is that he knew English.”
Yes, he was captured because his entire tribe mysteriously died prior to contact with Europeans. His first contact was to be enslaved.
As did, in fact, the tribe native to the area where the pilgrims settled.
“The Indians didn’t have any defense against a host of diseases that arrived with the Europeans.”
Sure. But they were already dying in large numbers of SOMETHING.
I don’t have to read 1491.
I’m married to a doctor who happens to be Mescalero Apache and specializes in communicable disease and who wrote her PhD thesis on what killed the Indians before the Apache, utilizing DNA samples of dead folk.
They were (at least in this area) full of hantavirus inside the skulls.
People tend to just say "smallpox", but more mundane things like the flu killed off large numbers of the native populations also.
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