East Smithfield Black Death cemetery summary

The burials were clustered in two areas. A total of 558 burials were excavated from the western cemetery; 300 individuals were uncovered from mass graves and a further 258 from single inhumation graves. The eastern cemetery revealed 192 individuals; 102 from mass graves and 90 individuals from single inhumations. It is estimated that approximately 40-50% of the cemetery is still in-situ below the Royal Mint’s courtyard (Grainger and Phillpotts in prep).

A total of 636 individuals from the two areas have been recorded onto the database.

Methodology

The recording of the East Smithfield Black Death cemetery deviates from the overall methodology.

Dental pathology was not recorded with the 0 and 9 option. Entries were only made when any pathological conditions were observed.

Joints were recorded when present. The four-digit array option for recording degenerative wear was not applied.

Certain non-metric traits were not recorded correctly and this section should therefore be used with caution.

It was evident that previous research on the collection had led to the removal of some skeletal remains with pathology, which has resulted in the pathological conditions recorded here to be of limited representative and interpretative value.

Preservation

The preservation of the material was good though skeletal completeness was poor for the subadults. A large proportion (24.8%) of the individuals could not be allocated an age category due to incompleteness.

Preservation	N=	%
Good	424	66.7
Medium	189	29.7
Poor	23	3.6

Table 1 Skeletal preservation

Figure 1 Skeletal completeness (N=636)

Demography

The demographic profile for the Black Death individuals revealed 27.8% subadults and 72.2% adults. The age profile indicated that a majority of the adults died before the age of 35, whilst a majority of the sub adults died over the age of 5 years. This profile does not follow the traditional death curve for a medieval population, but reflect the profile of a living population and a typical death curve for a catastrophe cemetery (Chamberlain 2006).

Figure 2 Age distribution (N=636)

Age	N=	%
Perinatal	5	0.8
1-6 month	4	0.6
7-11 month	2	0.3
1-5 years	52	8.2
6-11 years	61	9.6
12-17 years	53	8.3
18-25 years	63	9.9
26-35 years	121	19.0
36-45 years	97	15.3
>46 years	22	3.5
Adult	117	18.4
Sub adult	39	6.1

Table 2 Age distribution (N=636)

Figure 3 Male and female distribution of adults (N=420)

	All adults	%	Male	%	Female	%
18-25 years	63	15.0	36	19.0	16	15.4
26-35 years	121	28.8	68	36.0	38	36.5
36-45 years	97	23.1	62	32.8	31	29.8
>46 years	22	5.2	12	6.3	9	8.7
Unsexed Adults	117	27.9	11	5.8	10	9.6
Total	420		189		104

Table 3 Male and female distribution by age in the adult population

Stature

Sex	Avg_stat	SD	VAR	MIN	MAX	N
Female	160.6	5.5	30.7	151.1	179.0	30
Male	167.6	6.0	36.6	153.3	180.1	61
Unsexed	164.6	8.7	75.7	147.6	179.5	12

Table 4 Stature estimation from femoral length

Pathology

Only a few pathological conditions were recorded in the skeletal assemblage. Most common were non-specific periositis and cribra orbitalia.Through previous analysis it is known that some pathological examples are no longer in the collection and therefore seriously limits the interpretative value of the pathological conditions noted.

The low prevalence rate of pathologies may, however, also be a reflection of the young age groups in the assemblage and the acute nature of their deaths. The rate of osteoarthritis was noticeably low for a medieval population.

East Smithfield Black Death pathology table (Word 125kb)

Vertebral pathology

The low rate of osteoarthritis was also noted in the vertebrae whilst ostepohytosis and Schmorl’s nodes wre relatively high with males apparently affected more than females (Table 5).

	All adults			Male			Female
	N	n	%	N	n	%	N	n	%
Osteoarthritis	139	15	10.8	70	7	10.0	62	7	11.3
Osteophytosis	139	94	67.6	70	50	71.4	62	41	66.1
IVD	139	51	36.7	70	26	37.1	62	23	37.1
Schmorl's nodes	139	60	43.2	70	39	55.7	62	18	29.0
Fusion	139	9	6.5	70	5	7.1	62	4	6.5

Table 5 Distribution of vertebral pathology by sex in adults with one or more vertebrae present

Dental pathology

The crude table provided here (Table 6) suggests that the rate of dental enamel hypoplasia was relatively high in the Black Death population compared to the individuals recovered from St Mary Graces, perhaps suggesting a large proportion of the relatively young adults in this cemetery were exposed to the Great famine (1313-1317) during early childhood.

	Caries			Calculus			Hypoplasia			Periodontitis			Periapical lesions
	N	n	%	N	n	%	N	n	%	N	n	%	N	n	%
Male	141	89	63.1	141	136	96.5	141	112	79.4	136	85	62.5	136	33	24.3
Female	70	46	65.7	70	67	95.7	70	57	81.4	70	45	64.3	70	17	24.3
All adults	245	149	60.8	245	232	94.7	245	193	78.8	237	144	60.8	237	52	21.9
Sub adults	108	21	19.4	108	54	50.0	108	38	35.2	98	5	5.1	98	2	2.0

Table 6 Distribution of dental pathology in sub adults and adults

Discussion

The mass graves of the Black Death cemetery have been very closely dated to 1348-1350 during some of the most challenging years of the medieval period. Exposure to famine, war and epidemics was not uncommon. The demographic profile of the dead population reflects that of a living one, suggesting that there was an indiscriminate cross section of the population who died during the Black Death.

Site location

Royal Mint, East Smithfield, E1
Sitecode MIN86

Recorded by: Bekvalac J, Cowal L, Mikulski R and Kausmally T
Text by: Kausmally T
Last updated: 28 March 2007