Black Death burial pit found at site of medieval abbey in Lincolnshire

Carbon dating shows skeletons are from mid-14th century, while DNA tests of teeth find presence of plague bacterium

A mass burial pit of victims of the Black Death dating back to the 14th century has been discovered near Immingham in Lincolnshire.

Archaeologists from the University of Sheffield were searching the site of Thornton Abbey, once one of the country's biggest medieval abbeys, for evidence of a post-medieval building when they came across the grave containing 48 skeletons, 27 of them children.