The graves of twelve suspected victims of the Black Death have been unearthed in London. Workers excavating on a tunnel for an extension of the London Underground system discovered the human remains and brought in archaeologists to investigate.

This excavation is one in a series of recent discoveries of plague burial sites in Europe, allowing for DNA testing and forensic examination of plague victims. The new evidence may be able to confirm that the Black Death was indeed bubonic plague, as has long been suspected. Over the past twenty years, some scholars have theorized that the pandemic may have been caused by a filovirus rather than bacteria.

The Guardian reports on the excavations.

NIU students in medieval history and Western Civilization courses may want to follow this developing story.