The “Black Death” was one of the worst epidemics in human history and also raged in Central Europe. Archaeologists have now discovered one of the few known mass graves of plague victims near Erfurt from this period – an area with numerous bone fragments from the middle of the 14th century. It is the first discovery of such a plague mass grave in Europe through targeted searches. The find now offers the chance to learn more about the medieval plague, its consequences and those affected in this region.
The “Black Death” was one of the worst epidemics in human history. The pathogen Yersinia pestis, which originated in Central Asia, was introduced into the Mediterranean region by ship imports of grain and spread rapidly across Europe from the port cities there from 1346 onwards. In the years that followed, around half of the population in medieval Europe fell victim to this plague epidemic. In many places, so many people died that the local cemeteries became too small and the plague victims had to be buried in mass graves.
Numerous historical records report such plague mass graves, but only a few of these burial pits have been found so far. “To our knowledge, there are currently fewer than ten mass graves in Europe for which archaeological and historical evidence enabled precise dating and positive detection of Yersinia pestis,” report Michael Hein from the University of Leipzig and his colleagues. The best-studied plague mass grave is in London’s East Smithfield, other parts of England and France. In Germany, medieval mass graves from Lübeck and Manching in Bavaria are known, although either the dating or the causes of death are uncertain, as the team explains.
Thousands of plague deaths also in medieval Erfurt
Now Hein and his colleagues have managed to locate another plague mass grave – near Erfurt. The city is located in one of the easternmost regions where the medieval plague epidemic was rampant. Contemporary chronicles report that around 12,000 people died of the plague during the 1350 outbreak. “Most of these plague victims were buried in eleven pits in the cemetery of Neuses, a village a few kilometers outside the city of Erfurt,” the researchers report. However, the exact location of these mass graves was previously unknown.
Hein and his team therefore used an interdisciplinary approach to search for these plague mass graves. They evaluated historical sources and then used geophysical measurements to search for medieval burial pits in the identified areas using, among other things, soil conductivity and sediment drilling. The focus was on the long-abandoned village of Neuses, where, according to records, the graves were supposed to be located.
Remains of bones and disturbed earth
In fact, the archaeologists in the Neuses desert came across a 10 by 15 meter area in which the subsoil was noticeably mixed and contained a particularly large amount of organic material and fragments of human bones. Radiocarbon analyzes showed that these remains date from the 14th century – and therefore from the time of the plague. “Our results indicate that we have clearly located one of the plague mass graves in Erfurt described in the chronicles,” says Hein. The find is the first plague mass grave in Europe to be found through a systematic search.
The newly discovered mass grave is located on the edge of the Gera River valley in the drier black earth area. The moist floodplain soil directly next to the river was apparently considered unsuitable for burial at the time – possibly because decomposition processes take place more slowly in wet locations. “This corresponds not only to modern findings, but also to the medieval ‘miasma’ theory, which states that diseases are spread by ‘bad air’ or vapors emanating from rotting organic material,” explains co-author Martin Bauch from the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO). According to ideas at the time, the disease would not have been as easy to contain on damp sites.
Important insight into the Black Death era
“This find is not only archaeologically and historically significant. It helps us understand how societies deal with mass deaths and how modern, interdisciplinary research can help locate the locations of mass graves,” says senior author Christoph Zielhofer from the University of Leipzig. At the same time, this underlines how useful the combination of geophysical and archaeological methods is for researching this era. The plague grave discovered near Erfurt now offers the opportunity to learn more about the plague in Central Europe, its fatalities and the evolution of the pathogen Yersinia pestis through genetic and anthropological analyzes of the human remains. At the same time, the find provides further insight into Erfurt’s medieval history.
Source: University of Leipzig; Specialist article: PLOS One, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0337410