Plague disease warning over new road

A planned new relief road could plough through plague pits, releasing the deadly disease, a council archaeologist has warned.

Stirling Council wants to build the road to divert traffic away from Stirling city centre.

In an official report, council archaeologist Dr Murray Cook says the proposed road lies next to a prehistoric cemetery and an area where the bodies of plague victims were dumped in the 17th Century.

His report says: “The proposed development area lies in the immediate environs of a number of known and potential archaeological sites.

“The site also lies on the immediate outskirts of the medieval burgh on a former raised beach, the base of which is associated with deposits of peat.

“This broad location was used in the 17th Century to dispose of the dead from a series of early 17th Century plagues which killed hundreds if not thousands of people.

“The precise location of these plague burials is unknown, though the combination of damp conditions and bodies raises the potential for excellent preservation, including any plague virus, which of course represents a potential biological hazard.”

In fact, plague is caused by a bacterium, yersinia pestis, not a virus and is treatable by modern medicine.

Dr Cook said there was “clear potential” for the presence of both prehistoric and post-medieval human remains in the development area.

He said that, before any construction work begins, an “experienced and suitably qualified archaeological contractor” should make a photographic record of the site and its setting and excavate of a series of trenches of 10% of the proposed development area.

He also recommends a planning condition be attached to any consent stating no works shall take place on the site until the archaeological works are completed “to safeguard and record the archaeological potential of the area”.

In Stirling there are believed to have been outbreaks of plague in 1606 and 1645, the 1606 one killing more than 600 people – a large part of the population at that time.

Bubonic and septicemic plague is generally spread by fleas or rats. The pneumonitic form is generally spread between people through the air via infectious droplets.

Plague has historically occurred in large outbreaks, with the most well known being the Black Death in the 14th Century, which resulted in more than 50 million European dead.

There are now fewer than 600 cases reported globally every year.

A Stirling Council spokesman said the creation of the link road was an active planning application and all comments and consultations would be taken into consideration in reaching a final recommendation.

The combination of damp conditions and bodies raises the potential for excellent preservation, including any plague virus