Plague immunodetection in remains of religious exhumed from burial sites in central France

Black Death in the rural cemetery of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse Aude-Languedoc, southern France, 14th century: immunological evidence

“…The AgF1 concentrations in the above samples ranged from 2.5 ng/ml to 0.625 ng/ml. We previously found that the detection threshold of the test (0.5 ng/ml) is diagnostic for Y. pestis infection in ancient skeletal remains (Bianucci et al, 2007(Bianucci et al, , 2008(Bianucci et al, , 2009. We emphasize that one doubtful and one negative result each was obtained while testing the spongy bone harvested from samples SLC 1081 and SLC 1082.…”

“…More recently, a palaeoimmunological technique, the plague dipstick assay or rapid diagnostic test for plague (RDT), has been successfully introduced for ancient Y. pestis immunodetection. The cheap test is now generally used for investigation of mass graves where plague victims are suspected to have been buried (Bianucci, 2006;Bianucci et al, 2007Bianucci et al, , 2008Bianucci et al, , 2009.…”

Interpreting lime burials. A discussion in light of lime burials at St. Rombout's cemetery in Mechelen, Belgium (10th–18th centuries)

“…Once the coffin decayed, it is possible that the plaster, lime or chalk leached away and were never discovered. Similarly, in Poitiers in France, layers of lime were found in four of the 42 graves dated to the 17th century (Bianucci et al, 2009). At St. Rombout's cemetery in Mechelen, only five lime burials were discovered amongst a total of 3617 excavated burials, representing more than eight centuries.…”

“…There is hardly any archaeological evidence from the Middle-Ages that connects lime burials to epidemics or plague cemeteries, with the exception of a multiple plague burial in Barcelona, Spain (14th century) . In the Modern Age (16th-19th centuries) lime is found in single burials (Bashford and Sibun, 2007;Cherryson et al, 2012;Driscoll, 2002;Mendes et al, 2009;Weiss-Krejci, 2008), in single burials related to plague epidemics (Bianucci et al, 2009) and in multiple burials (Castex, 2008;Castex et al, 2011;Tzortzis and Signoli, 2009). In the 20th and 21st centuries, lime has mainly been observed in clandestine burials (Bass and Jefferson, 2003: 119-131;D'Errico et al, 2011;Hochrein, 2002;Jackson and Jackson, 2008: 367;Jackson, 2002: 137, 169;Jones, 1987;Laudermilk, 1932;Manhein, 1996), in mass graves associated with conflict such as World War I (1914War I ( -1918, World War II (1940)(1941)(1942)(1943)(1944)(1945), the Spanish Civil War (1936)(1937)(1938)(1939) or the Balkan conflict (1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001) (Blumoff, 2000;Cook, 2006;International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, 2000;Jünger, 2004: 154;…”

The origin and early spread of the Black Death in Italy: first evidence of plague victims from 14th-century Liguria (northern Italy)

“…To detect Y. pestis F1-specific envelope glycoprotein, the Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) for plague was employed, an immunochromatographic assay extensively used in bioarchaeological investigations (Bianucci et al, 2007(Bianucci et al, , 2008(Bianucci et al, , 2009Kacki et al, 2011). Bone samples from the woman and her fetus and from the two sub-adults (Table 1) were analyzed as previously described (Haensch et al, 2010).…”