Why Hundreds of Skeletons Were Buried Here | Digging for Britain

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]Redevelopment in our cities often involves clearing cemeteries [music] and archaeological excavation represents the most respectful way of treating those human remains whilst allowing us to find out more about the people themselves.

[00:00:15]We've had some fantastic burial archaeology from the southeast and the Midlands recently and now archaeologists in the north are [music] getting the same opportunity.

[00:00:25]Our final dig takes us back to Scotland [music] where a few miles from Edinburgh lies the port town of Leath.

[00:00:35]Here a new tram line linking Leath [music] to the city center of Edinburgh is under construction. The route follows the main roads which have to be excavated. But one stretch of road was built over part of a huge medieval burial ground.

[00:00:51]For the last decade, a team from Guard Archaeology have been excavating and analyzing hundreds of graves.

[00:01:01]>> Got one up there, one here, and there's a >> John Lawson is the city archaeologist.

[00:01:06]>> What we have is a general population of leaf during the period of 13 to 1650.

[00:01:11]All ages, all social classes, from people buried in simple shreddy burials right the way through to coffin graves from the 14th century.

[00:01:21]The skeletons are revealing much about the health of Leath's residents and how long they lived during a 400year period when life was often short and hard, >> likely 10 to 12 years of age.

[00:01:35]>> I mean, we're not looking at an elite burial ground. We're looking at our society captures everything from the poorest right the way through to your sort of richer merchants and everything in between.

[00:01:43]>> Uh, and I've just found here a small copper alloy shroud pen. The team have recorded their discoveries [music] on our diary cameras.

[00:01:52]>> With children, they have a lot more teeth that are just sitting up in the gums. So, what we've got here is a juvenile. They've got no teeth on the lower mandible. The tooth sockets are completely healed. So, that's called alvolar resorption. So, they lost all their teeth during life and live for quite a while without any.

[00:02:12]The excavation is thorough. Every scrap of coffin wood, loose nail, and fragment of [music] surviving textile is recorded, providing detailed insights into [music] burial practices as they evolved in leaf.

[00:02:26]>> And all of these so far have had the hands behind the pelvis.

[00:02:30]>> This one, this one, and this one. And the rest that are true east, west have had the hands like this.

[00:02:37]>> It's been a shroud burial. So, it's been buried in a cloth. pin. It's normally one shroud pin, but so far on this burial, there's been seven shroud pins.

[00:02:49]This part of the burial ground seems to have gone out of use around 1650.

[00:02:54]In the more prosperous centuries that followed, many of the roads and houses of leaf were built. Now, the team are finding evidence that some of this burial ground stood in the way of progress once before.

[00:03:08]There's a massive Victorian sewer which serves most of the leaf running straight the way down the site here. Given what we find, we estimate they probably removed about maybe 3 to 400 burials. We know they did it, but we don't have the records.

[00:03:23]>> There may not be any official documents, [music] but the team have uncovered evidence of large scale relocation of skeletons.

[00:03:32]What we have here is a char pit uh which is basically a man-made pit of human remains that have been put in. The charal classes as human remains that are no longer associated with a full skeleton. We reckon [music] there's more than 20 individuals in this set place.

[00:03:52]Reason why they've come in could be from when the workers may have found these remains and decided to put them behind the new wall to keep them in sacred ground, hall ground.

[00:04:03]>> [music] >> Faced with archaeological evidence like this, it's hard to learn much about how these people lived and died.

[00:04:11]But complete skeletons can tell us much more. Like this one, a person who had clearly been the victim of a traumatic event.

[00:04:20]>> So, it looks like they've been hit with something during life. And this blow hasn't killed them. And we can tell that because of this rounded edge here. So, this is bone regrowth um after this injury. And it kind of looks like because we've got such a round edge on it, it looks like they've gone in um so doctors have gone in to remove the bone and to clean up this edge and that's caused it to um to regrow in this sort of circular path.

[00:04:42]>> Okay. Oh, that's amazing, isn't it?

[00:04:44]>> It's really interesting.

[00:04:45]>> Just a story about >> how this person would have survived and the medical care that they had. We just don't think about it.

[00:04:51]>> But maybe in the 13 or 1400s.

[00:04:53]>> Yeah.

[00:04:56][music] John has brought that fascinating skeleton to the digging for Britain tent so I [music] can get a closer look at the injury.

[00:05:08]>> John, [music] thank you for bringing in one of the skeletons from this dig. How many skeletons, how many burials did you uncover in the end?

[00:05:15]>> 385. The total count may go up. So, we're just through that post excavation process at the moment.

[00:05:20]>> And we're seeing one of these leases here. So, tell me about this skeleton then, John. She's probably in her mid20s and she obviously has a had a very large bumped head. You can actually see um evidence of blunt force trauma where there sort of cracks coming up, two lines coming up the side of her skull here >> and over here looking at this that it's more likely to have been the result of a violent injury.

[00:05:41]>> And we certainly know it wasn't a murder because she survived this and she survived this by at least a couple of years because this is all healed.

[00:05:49]>> It's amazing. And to survive that long with all the injuries and without modern medicine.

[00:05:53]>> And you've you've had reconstructions done, haven't you?

[00:05:55]>> We have. Yeah.

[00:05:57]>> With a [music] skull in such good condition, a reconstruction artist can put muscles, skin, and hair back. And we can see the face of this young [music] woman before she was horrifically injured.

[00:06:11]We're looking at somebody who was alive in the 15th century.

[00:06:14]>> Yeah. Probably the middle part of the 15th century. And I think it's really important to to see faces like this because, you know, look at a lot of skeletons and a lot of skulls and you see them as individuals, >> but >> you're actually seeing them as people when you do the reconstruction and it literally puts flesh on the bones and it allows you to think about that human experience of going through that horrific injury.

[00:06:35]>> And I think that's part of that our project is trying to put us today back into the footsteps of the people in the past to show they're not different. They [music] are ourselves, you know.

[00:06:44]>> I mean, that's why we do archaeology, isn't it?

[00:06:45]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:49]We [music and singing] dig for the gods that leave no bones for she.

[00:06:55][music] [singing] >> The challenges this year have been unprecedented and yet it's been such a memorable journey. This is Richmond Castle. This beach in West Wales. I love the Mendip Hills.

[00:07:09]>> The beauty [music] of our landscape, the variety of digs.

[00:07:12]>> Oh, look at this.

[00:07:13]>> And the wealth of finds. Absolutely lovely.

[00:07:16]>> Has been breathtaking. Some really [music] exciting evidence has just emerged. Found a couple brooches. I found a ring.

[00:07:23]>> Who else bothered? Keep going.

[00:07:24]>> What on earth is that?

[00:07:26]>> Brain eating snails.

[00:07:27]>> Bizarre.

[00:07:29]>> Look. I can't believe you found that on your first day. It almost looks like a hand.

[00:07:33]>> Wow.

[00:07:34]>> That's not medieval. [music] Could it be Roman? It's a beautiful thing, isn't it?

[00:07:38]>> What a mystery to have solved.

[00:07:40]>> Oh my goodness. I'm quite emotional seeing this. It's just amazing. [music] I can't wait to do it all again.