LONDON -- Archaeologists have discovered more than 1,000 human remains in a burial site under the University of Cambridge.
It's thought the burial ground was similar to modern cemeteries as archeologies found gravel paths and a water well as well as seeds from flowering plants.
The large medieval hospital burial ground was discovered following an archeological dig under the Old Divinity School at St John's College, according to findings in the latest issue of the Archaeological Journal.
Archeologists were aware of the burial site's existence but didn't know how how big the site was until now. The discovery gives them new insights into life and death in medieval Cambridge.
400 perfectly preserved skeletons, dating from the 13th to the 15th centuries, have been closely examined by the team who said in a statement that it's likely most burials took place without coffins or shrouds, meaning it may have been a cemetery for the poor.
The dig was led by Dr Craig Cessford from Cambridge University's archeology and anthropology department and a team from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit.
"The excavation of four hundred complete and partial in situ burials from the Hospital of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge, represented one of the largest medieval hospital osteoarchaeological assemblages from the British Isles," he writes in the article's abstract.
The hospital connected to the burial ground was instituted in around 1195 by the townspeople of Cambridge to care for the sick.