Overview
- The Leipzig-led team reports in PLOS One that boreholes recovered human bone fragments radiocarbon‑dated to the 14th century.
- The location was identified through a coordinated search using historical maps, geophysical measurements and sediment cores rather than chance discovery.
- Definitive verification is planned via archaeological excavation with the Thuringian heritage authority, with DNA work to be conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- Well-dated plague mass graves from the 14th century are rare in Europe, with fewer than ten confirmed sites documented to date.
- Contemporary chronicles describe about 12,000 burials in eleven large pits outside Erfurt around 1350, and researchers say the newly localized feature may correspond to one of those graves.