Massive Crossrail project brings history back to life
ARCHAEOLOGICAL digs triggered by the Crossrail project have unearthed tens of thousands of fascinating items including ancient Roman artifacts, the bones of plague victims and a rare piece of 55-million-year-old amber.
Crossrail is Europe’s largest infrastructure project with 73 miles of railway lines running through London and into the Home Counties.
Archaeologists unearthed evidence of business activity in the capital dating back thousands of years, including the existence of a prehistoric flint factory.
Details of the finds are being published in ten books examining different aspects of the sevenyear dig.
There were bones from mammoths, bison and other animals dating back about 68,000 years.
One particularly significant find was about 30 Roman skulls which may have belonged to citizens or soldiers decapitated by Queen Boudicca’s rebels during the 1st Century rebellion.
Other discoveries include one of London’s earliest graveyards where 25 suspected victims of the Black Death were laid to rest.
The 14th and 15th Century remains, dating back as far as 1348, were found to contain traces of the DNA of the bacterium responsible for the bubonic plague.
Archaeologists also excavated more than 13,000 well-preserved 19th and 20th Century pickle pots, glass bottles and jam jars from the Crossrail site at Tottenham Court Road – formerly a Crosse & Blackwell factory.
Crossrail chief executive Andrew Wolstenholme said: ‘This has been a once in a lifetime opportunity to study historically significant parts of London that have lain tantalisingly out of reach for so long.’