Thousands of skeletons found in a mass grave in London were of people
who died due to climatic changes after a 13th century volcanic eruption,
according to archaeologists.
An excavation, which took place
between 1991 and 2007, discovered 10,500 medieval skeletons at
Spitalfields Market in east London, the Daily Mail reported.
Experts says there could have been as many as 18,000 bodies.
At that time, experts assumed the people had died during the Black Death or the Great Famine.
However, after performing radiocarbon dating of the bones, scientists have come to the conclusion that they were in
fact victims of a 13th century volcanic eruption, one of the largest in
the past 10,000 years.
The daily said the eruption was so big
that its sulphurous gases created a veil of dry fog across the earth's
stratosphere which blocked out sunlight, altered the atmosphere and
cooled the earth's surface causing famine, plague and death.
As many as 15,000 people in London could have perished, the scientists said.
Though
the location of the volcano has not yet been discovered, researchers
believe it could have been as far away as Mexico, Ecuador and Indonesia
and was up to eight times higher that Indonesia's Krakatoa eruption in
1883.
Thousands of skeletons found in London pit
