British experts say they have found London’s lost Black Death graves

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In this Wednesday, March 26, 2014 photo, members of the media film one of the skeletons found by construction workers under central London's Charterhouse Square. Twenty-five skeletons were uncovered last year during work on Crossrail, a new rail line that's boring 13 miles (21 kilometers) of tunnels under the heart of the city. Archaeologists immediately suspected the bones came from a cemetery for victims of the bubonic plague that ravaged Europe in the 14th century. The Black Death, as the plague was called, is thought to have killed at least 75 million people, including more than half of Britain's population. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)By Andrew Osborn LONDON (Reuters) – Archaeologists in Britain said on Sunday they had solved a 660-year-old mystery, citing DNA tests which they said proved they had found a lost burial site for tens of thousands of people killed in medieval London by the "Black Death" plague. The breakthrough follows the discovery last year of 13 skeletons wrapped in shrouds laid out in neat rows during excavations for London's new Crossrail rail line, Europe's biggest infrastructure project. Archaeologists, who say the find sheds new light on medieval England and its inhabitants, later found 12 more skeletons taking the total to 25. Limited records suggest up to 50,000 victims were buried in the cemetery in London's Farringdon district, one of two emergency burial sites.

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