A total of 25 skeletons were found last year by workers who were building Crossrail, a new rail line for London.
The skeletons were found under Charterhouse Square in Farrington during excavation work for the project, and include the remains of 13 men, three women, two children, and seven other unidentified people, according to The Irish Times.
Archeologists believed the bones came from plague victims in a cemetery. Scientists tested the theory by taking one tooth from each of 12 skeletons and removed DNA from the teeth. After finding the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, in some of the teeth, they announced Sunday the people were exposed to, and most likely died from, the Black Death, AOL reported.
The scientists said the evidence showed the site was used as a burial ground for victims of the Black Death, The Irish Times reported. They added that most of the bodies showed signs of poor health as well as signs of having jobs involving heavy manual labor, indicating back damage and strain.
The archeologists found that the skeletons lay in layers and may have come from three different periods, which were the original Black Death epidemic from 1348 to 1350, later outbreaks in 1361 and the early 15th century, according to AOL.
"It suggests that the burial ground was used again and again for the burial of plague victims," said Jay Carver, Crossrail's lead archeologist.
The Black Death is believed to have killed over 75 million people. The burials were orderly, with the bodies wrapped in shrouds and laid out in neat rows, suggesting there was at first a higher level of social order during the epidemic. However, the injuries on the later skeletons showed that the period was followed by years of social chaos, AOL reported.
Researchers are looking to find out if the disease from the 14th century is as dangerous as the modern version, or the possibility that the disease has evolved.
Brendan Wren, a professor of molecular biology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the new information could help researchers, "understand how the plague bacillus- and other nasty bugs- become so virulent to humans."
"It is useful information that could warn and avert potential epidemics and pandemics," Wren said.
