Article:

Girls walk along a street in Old Havana where a driver steers his classic American car in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, April 17, 2018. A legislative session on Wednesday will see a historic political transition,... (Associated Press)

 Girls walk along a street in Old Havana where a driver steers his classic American car in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, April 17, 2018. A legislative session on Wednesday will see a historic political transition, in which President Raul Castro plans to step down and hand over the office to a younger successor.... (Associated Press)

 Girls walk along a street in Old Havana where a driver steers his classic American car in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, April 17, 2018. A legislative session on Wednesday will see a historic political transition, in which President Raul Castro plans to step down and hand over the office to a younger successor.... (Associated Press) Girls walk along a street in Old Havana where a driver steers his classic American car in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, April 17, 2018. A legislative session on Wednesday will see a historic political transition,... (Associated Press)

 HAVANA (AP) — Cuba's National Assembly will elect a new president on Wednesday and announce the replacement for Raul Castro the next day, an unusual two-day process that will install someone from outside the Castro family in the country's highest government office for the first time in nearly six decades.

 The Cuban National Assembly has generally met and selected the president in one day. Its votes are nearly always anonymous and seen as reflecting the will of the country's top leadership.

 Communist Party newspaper Granma says the congress will assemble at 9 a.m. and select leaders of the legislature before voting for the president and other members of the Council of State, the country's highest government body. Granma says state media will broadcast live "the most important moments of the unfolding of this transcendental session."

 The secret vote will be counted by the National Electoral Commission and announced Thursday, Granma says.

 The new president will take over for the 86-year-old Castro, who is stepping down after two five-year terms. His brother Fidel was prime minister and president from 1959 until he fell ill in 2006. Although Osvaldo Dorticos was president of Cuba during Fidel Castro's time as prime minister, he was considered a figurehead next to the man who led Cuba's revolution, forged its single-party socialist system and ruled by fiat.

 First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, 57, has long been seen as the overwhelming favorite to replace Castro, and a series of high-profile appearances on state-run television in recent days have done nothing to change that. Cuba's constitution does, however, allow for any member of the 605-seat legislature to be elected as head of the council of state. ||||| Girls walk along a street in Old Havana where a driver steers his classic American car in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, April 17, 2018. A legislative session on Wednesday will see a historic political transition,... (Associated Press)

 Girls walk along a street in Old Havana where a driver steers his classic American car in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, April 17, 2018. A legislative session on Wednesday will see a historic political transition, in which President Raul Castro plans to step down and hand over the office to a younger successor.... (Associated Press)

 HAVANA (AP) — The Cuban government on Wednesday selected 57-year-old First Vice President Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez as the sole candidate to succeed President Raul Castro in a transition aimed at ensuring that the country's single-party system outlasts the aging revolutionaries who created it.

 The certain approval of Diaz-Canel by members of the unfailingly unanimous National Assembly will install someone from outside the Castro family in the country's highest government office for the first time in nearly six decades.

 The 86-year-old Castro will remain head of the Communist Party, designated by the constitution as "the superior guiding force of society and the state." As a result, Castro will remain the most powerful person in Cuba for the time being. His departure from the presidency is nonetheless a symbolically charged moment for a country accustomed to 60 years of absolute rule first by revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and, for the last decade, his younger brother.

 Facing biological reality but still active and apparently healthy, Raul Castro is stepping down as president in an effort to guarantee that new leaders can maintain the government's grip on power in the face of economic stagnation, an aging population and increasing disenchantment among younger generations.

 "I like sticking with the ideas of President Fidel Castro because he did a lot for the people of Cuba, but we need rejuvenation, above all in the economy," said Melissa Mederos, a 21-year-old schoolteacher. "Diaz-Canel needs to work hard on the economy, because people need to live a little better."

 Most Cubans know their first vice president as an uncharismatic figure who until recently maintained a public profile so low it was virtually nonexistent. That image changed slightly this year as state media placed an increasing spotlight on Diaz-Canel's public appearances, including remarks to the press last month that included his promise to make Cuba's government more responsive to its people.

 "We're building a relationship between the government and the people here," he said then after casting a ballot for members of the National Assembly. "The lives of those who will be elected have to be focused on relating to the people, listening to the people, investigating their problems and encouraging debate."

 Diaz-Canel gained prominence in central Villa Clara province as the top Communist Party official, a post equivalent to governor. There, people described him as a hard-working, modest-living technocrat dedicated to improving public services. He became higher education minister in 2009 before moving into the vice presidency.

 In a video of a Communist Party meeting that inexplicably leaked to the public last year, Diaz-Canel expressed a series of orthodox positions that included somberly pledging to shutter some independent media and labeling some European embassies as outposts of foreign subversion.

 But he has also defended academics and bloggers who became targets of hardliners, leading some to describe him a potential advocate for greater openness in a system intolerant of virtually any criticism or dissent. International observers and Cubans alike will be scrutinizing every move he makes after he officially takes office on Thursday.

 Two years after taking over from his ailing brother in 2006, Castro launched a series of reforms that expanded Cuba's private sector to nearly 600,000 people and allowed citizens greater freedom to travel and access to information. He has failed to fix the generally unproductive and highly subsidized state-run businesses that, along with a Soviet-model bureaucracy, employ three of every four Cubans. State salaries average $30 a month, leaving workers struggling to feed their families, and often dependent on corruption or remittances from relatives overseas.

 Castro's moves to open the economy have largely been frozen or reversed as soon as they began to generate conspicuous shows of wealth by the new entrepreneurial class in a country officially dedicated to equality among its citizens.

 "I don't want to see a capitalist system, hopefully that doesn't come here, but we have to fix the economy," said Roberto Sanchez, a 41-year-old construction worker. "I'd like to have more opportunity, to buy a car, and have a few possessions."

 As in Cuba's legislative elections, all of the leaders selected Wednesday were selected by a government-appointed commission. Ballots offer only the option of approval or disapproval and candidates generally receive more than 95 percent of the votes in their favor.

 The Candidacy Commission also nominated another six vice presidents of the Council of State, Cuba's highest government body. Only one, 85-year-old Ramiro Valdez, was among the revolutionaries who fought with the Castros in the late 1950s in the eastern Sierra Maestra mountains.

 State media went into overdrive Wednesday with a single message: Cuba's system is continuing in the face of change. Commentators on state television and online offered lengthy explanations of why Cuba's single-party politics and socialist economy are superior to multi-party democracy and free markets, and assured Cubans that no fundamental changes were occurring, despite some new faces at the top.

 "It falls on our generation to give continuity to the revolutionary process," said assembly member Jorge Luis Torres, a municipal councilman from central Artemisa province who appeared to be in his 40s. "We're a generation born after the revolution, whose responsibility is driving the destiny of the nation."

 Castro entered the National Assembly just after 9 a.m. accompanied by a broadly smiling Diaz-Canel. Ceremonies continued through lunchtime and broke until Thursday morning, when the new national leadership is expected to be officially announced on the anniversary of the defeat of U.S.-backed invaders at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

 Fidel Castro was prime minister and president from 1959 until he fell ill in 2006. Although Osvaldo Dorticos was president of Cuba during Fidel Castro's time as prime minister, he was considered a figurehead beside the man who led Cuba's revolution, forged its single-party socialist system and ruled by fiat.

 ______

 Associated Press Writer Ben Fox contributed to this report. |||||
What is a summary?

– The Cuban government on Wednesday selected 57-year-old First Vice President Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez as the sole candidate to succeed President Raul Castro in a transition aimed at ensuring that the country's single-party system outlasts the aging revolutionaries who created it. The certain approval of Diaz-Canel by members of the unfailingly unanimous National Assembly will install someone from outside the Castro family in the country's highest government office for the first time in nearly six decades, the AP reports. In what the AP initially called an "unusual two-day process," Diaz-Canel will officially take office Thursday; the new national leadership will be officially announced that day, the anniversary of the defeat of US-backed invaders at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. What to know: More on the process: The Cuban National Assembly has generally met and selected the president in one day. Its votes are nearly always anonymous and seen as reflecting the will of the country's top leadership. Cuba's constitution allows for any member of the 605-seat legislature to be elected as head of the council of state, but Diaz-Canel had long been seen as the overwhelming favorite. The new president will take over for the 86-year-old Castro, who is stepping down after two five-year terms. The Candidacy Commission also nominated another six vice presidents of the Council of State, Cuba's highest government body. The successor: Diaz-Canel gained prominence in central Villa Clara province as the top Communist Party official, a post equivalent to governor. There, people described him as a hard-working, modest-living technocrat dedicated to improving public services. He became higher education minister in 2009 before moving into the vice presidency. Most Cubans know their first vice president as an uncharismatic figure who until recently maintained a public profile so low it was virtually nonexistent.


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Hail to the bubbly! No, literally -- hail has been falling all over grapes made to make champagne and it’s cutting into the French output of the effervescent beverage.

 The champagne harvest is down 40 percent this year, leading to the worst yield in at least four decades, thanks to hail storms and fungus caused by wet weather, according to the French Agriculture Ministry, Businessweek reports. All over Europe, in fact, crops of grapes used to make wine have had a bad season this year, causing the total French grape harvest to decline by 20 percent, including in the well-known wine-producing regions of Burgundy and Bordeaux. Yields are also down in Italy and England.

 But despite the poor crops, champagne drinkers shouldn’t worry that the low output will cut into their 2013 New Year’s celebrations too much. Champagne takes at least 15 months to make and is often made from a mixture of grapes from harvests spanning several years so the long term effect isn’t expected to be too drastic. In fact, producers have an at least three-year supply of champagne in reserve, Businessweek reports.

 Indeed, even with the shortages expected from this year, wine producers seem equipped to handle the decline since there’s a surplus left over from waning demand in the U.S. and South America markets due to the recession, The Edmonton Journal reports.

 But demand for champagne appears to finally to be bouncing back after a three year lull, according to Harpers Wines. Last year, the U.S. champagne market grew 14.4 percent, Businessweek reports. ||||| France

 With its economy sliding into recession, France could use a bit of cheering up as the holiday season approaches. Instead, it got this news: The champagne harvest is down 40 percent this year, as vineyards were ravaged by hailstorms, wet weather, and fungus. “This is the lowest harvest in at least 40 years,” the Agriculture Ministry said in reporting the figures on Nov. 9.

 Happily for champagne aficionados, there’ll be no shortage for New Year’s Eve. The bubbly stuff has to age a minimum 15 months in producers’ cellars before being sold—so the bottle you open on Dec. 31 won’t come from this year’s crop. What’s more, there’s more than a three-year supply of champagne in producers’ vats, waiting to be bottled. Typically, champagne is made from a mixture of grapes from several years’ harvests. “We built up reserves during the years when we had big harvests, which helps us deal with the caprices of nature,” says Thibaut le Mailloux, a spokesman for the French champagne producers association, known as the CIVC.

 Unhappily for French producers, they have another problem. Their countrymen are drinking less champagne—and France accounts for about half of global sales. French champagne sales fell 2 percent in 2011, including an 8 percent year-on-year drop during the Christmas and New Year holiday season. At the time, the CIVC said the decline was a “temporary effect” from the European debt crisis. But the crisis has continued, and the French economy has worsened this year, with three quarters of flat growth and unemployment now at a 13-year high of more than 10 percent. “France is not really in a festive mood,” says Laetitia Delay, a beverage analyst at Kepler Capital Markets in Paris.

 Major producers such as LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMUY)—whose champagne brands include Moët & Chandon, Krug, and Veuve—have cushioned themselves against the downturn by exporting. Even as French sales dropped, the U.S. champagne market grew 14.4 percent in 2011 while China was up 19 percent. But smaller producers are suffering, Delay says. Adding to the woe, some distributors are lowering prices to clear their inventories. Says Delay: “That’s very bad for the image of champagne.” |||||

– Wet weather and hailstorms combined to make this year's Champagne harvest—the real capital C stuff from France—the worst in 40 years, reports BloombergBusinessweek. Damaged vineyards in the Champagne region yielded 40% fewer grapes this year, says an industry spokesman in Paris. The only good news is that this New Year's Eve won't be affected because bottles typically age 15 months. Generally speaking, it's been a lousy year for grapes all across Europe, notes the Huffington Post.


News article:

ASSOCIATED PRESS

 Vermont may well become the next state to legalize marijuana, and two state lawmakers who support legalization have a simple message for their colleagues: Give us what we want, or we'll take away your booze.

 A new bill filed earlier this month by state Reps. Jean O'Sullivan and Christopher Pearson would effectively reinstate alcohol prohibition in Vermont. If passed, House Bill 502 would outlaw consumption of alcohol, with penalties mirroring those currently in place for marijuana possession. Those found with small amounts of alcohol would be subject to fines of up to $500, and anyone involved in the sale and distribution stream could face up to 30 years in prison and $1 million in penalties.

 O'Sullivan herself acknowledges that even she doesn't support the substance of the bill. Rather, "the object was to basically embarrass leadership to say that we have [marijuana legalization bills] in front of us, and they're going absolutely nowhere," she told The Huffington Post.

 The lawmakers hope to give momentum to legalization in Vermont by raising awareness about the broad scientific consensus that marijuana is the least dangerous recreational drug on the market. A study published in February found that pot had the lowest risk of mortality when compared with nine other commonly used drugs, including alcohol and tobacco.

 "We're certainly not going to ban alcohol, but when you say you'll let a drug like that be legalized and then you have a drug like marijuana that's far safer that's still banned, it's completely ironic," O'Sullivan said.

 Another bill, H.277, sponsored by Pearson and O'Sullivan and currently in committee, proposes the legal sale and regulation of marijuana in Vermont. Senate Bill 95, which would also legalize the drug, was introduced earlier this year in the legislature's upper chamber.

 A Rand Corporation study released this year estimates that Vermonters spent between $125 to $225 million a year on marijuana in 2014. The report projects that tax revenue from a legal marijuana market in the state could amount to between $20 million and $70 million annually.

 O'Sullivan notes that taxing marijuana would go a long way to bridge the state's massive budget deficit.

 "Consider it a gauntlet thrown down," O'Sullivan said of H.277. "When you're looking at a $113 million budget deficit, it looks really bloody attractive."

 Beyond the financial incentives, evidence shows that there's something to the lawmakers' argument: Not a single person has ever been killed from a marijuana overdose. By contrast, around 88,000 Americans die each year due to excessive alcohol consumption, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ||||| Representatives Chris Pearson and Jean O’Sullivan introduced a bill this week to reinstate the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in Vermont, but they don’t want it to pass.

 The bill, which would make possession of alcohol punishable by up to 30 years in prison and fines of $1 million, is the latest rhetorical flourish by lawmakers hoping to legalize marijuana in Vermont.

 The legislation, according to the lawmakers, is based on “recent scientific studies that demonstrate that alcohol use is significantly more dangerous that marijuana use.” By their logic, if the less dangerous substance is illegal, then the more dangerous one should be outlawed as well.

 In a release about the bill, Progressive Rep. Chris Pearson of Burlington cited statistics that show that alcohol is a factor in 40 percent of all violent crimes in the U.S., and there were more than 80,000 alcohol-related deaths in the U.S. in 2010.

 “Marijuana, on the other hand, kills almost no one,” he said, acknowledging that driving under the influence of either marijuana or alcohol can increase risk.

 Democrat Jean O’Sullivan of Burlington cosponsored the bill, but also doesn’t want to see it pass.

 The bill has yet to see any action in the Statehouse. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Two Vermont lawmakers fed up with delays to legalize marijuana in the state introduced a headline-grabbing measure this week designed to move things along: one that would outlaw alcohol. Legislators Chris Pearson and Jean O'Sullivan admit they have no interest in reinstating Prohibition, but they want to make a larger point, reports Vermont Public Radio. In their eyes, marijuana is safer than alcohol, so why ban that drug and leave the other untouched? "The object was to basically embarrass leadership to say that we have [marijuana legalization bills] in front of us, and they're going absolutely nowhere," O'Sullivan tells the Huffington Post. Their bill would make those found in possession of small amounts of alcohol subject to fines of up to $500, and anyone caught selling or distributing it faces 30 years in prison and $1 million in fines. (A drug that's been around a while shows promise as a substitute for medical marijuana, without the stoner side effects.)


Summarize this article:

The White House employed a Hungarian fugitive for seven months, according to an arrest warrant that appears to show that Sebastian Gorka, a former adviser to Donald Trump, was wanted there on weapons charges as of September 2016.

 Controversial Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka out of White House job Read more

 The warrant, first reported by Hungarian online outlet 444 and BuzzFeed News is for “firearm or ammunition abuse”.

 Gorka, a former Breitbart writer and Trump campaign surrogate, served as “deputy assistant” to the president during his White House tenure, but the exact nature of his role was vague. Gorka was reportedly forced out last August, by the chief of staff, John Kelly, who had recently assumed the role.

 Details on the alleged crime triggered the warrant were scarce. The site 444 noted that it could have resulted from an incident as far back as 2009. Hungarian police did not respond to a request for comment.

 Gorka told the Guardian that “since I moved to the US in 2008”, a year before the possible 2009 incident, he would decline to comment.

 “More #FAKENEWS,” he then added.

 He did not reply to a question about whether the incident could have occurred on a visit back to his native Hungary.

 Gorka has a longstanding and well-documented interest in guns. He told Recoil magazine in November that his “everyday carry” includes two pistols, a knife, a tourniquet – and for good measure – a copy of the US constitution. In February 2016, he had a pistol confiscated after attempting to bring it through Washington’s Reagan national airport.

 Born in the UK to Hungarian-born parents, Gorka spent much of his career in the Hungarian ministry of defense working on issues of counter-terrorism. Since he became a fixture of the Trump campaign and administration, numerous experts have raised questions about his formal credentials and his work in the field of counter-terrorism, and noted his connections to the “alt-right” in the US and fringe rightwing groups in Hungary. ||||| Former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka was wanted by Hungarian police during his entire White House tenure, Buzzfeed reports.

 An ally of Steve Bannon’s and a former editor at Breitbart News, Gorka appears to still be wanted in Hungary on a charge of “firearm or ammunition abuse.” A listing on a Hungarian police website, first reported by local 444, offers little more detail about what got Gorka in trouble, other than suggesting the incident took place in 2009 and the warrant was issued in September of 2016.

 On Twitter, Gorka appeared to deny the charge, noting that he moved to the U.S. in 2008. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been in Hungary in 2009, but that’s apparently what he wants people to think.

 If Gorka was in fact popped for a gun charge in Hungary, it wouldn’t be his first firearm-related run in with the law. In 2016 he was charged with carrying a gun at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. But that didn’t convince him to put weapons away. Earlier this year he told Recoil magazine that his “everyday carry” consists of two pistols, a knife, a flashlight, a tourniquet and a copy of the U.S. Constitution. ||||| Former Trump White House staffer Sebastian Gorka has an active warrant out for his arrest in Hungary, according to the Hungarian police's website.

 Gorka, whose exact role in the White House while serving as a deputy assistant to the president was never entirely clear, apparently is in trouble with the law over a charge of "firearm or ammunition abuse." The warrant, first reported in Hungarian online outlet 444, was issued on Sept. 17, 2016, prior to Trump's election.

 That means that during the entire seven months Gorka spent in the White House, including when meeting with Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó in Washington last March, an arrest warrant was pending overseas.

 Details about the reasoning behind the warrant are sparse: The Hungarian police's website only notes the date it was issued, the charge, and that it was filed with the Budaörs police station in Budapest. 444 noted that the charge could have resulted from an incident as far back as 2009. The police station did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News' request for comment.

  |||||

– President Trump's deputy assistant was a wanted man during his seven-month stint in the White House, the Guardian reports. A warrant out of Hungary states Sebastian Gorka has been wanted on charges for "firearm or ammunition abuse" since September 2016. According to BuzzFeed, the warrant is still active. It's unclear what Gorka did to earn the warrant, though he has boasted in the past of regularly carrying two pistols and was stopped trying to carry a pistol through an airport in 2016. A Hungarian news outlet reports the warrant could be from an incident in 2009. Gorka, a former Breitbart writer, tells the Guardian the warrant is "more #FAKENEWS." On Twitter he responded to coverage of the warrant by saying he moved to the US in 2008. New York notes Gorka didn't necessarily have to be living in Hungary to have been there at some point in 2009. Gorka's actual role at the White House was unclear before he left in August (he claims he resigned, but reports say he was fired by new chief of staff John Kelly). However, it does appear Gorka was wanted by Hungary at the same time he met with that country's foreign minister as a White House adviser, which is, if nothing else, slightly ironic.


Article:

A lost medieval cemetery discovered under Cambridge University contained graves that had been pre-dug in anticipation of winter deaths, archaeologists have discovered.

 The huge graveyard was found during excavations beneath the Old Divinity School at St John's College during recent refurbishments.

 The mass cemetery, which was far larger than the small burial ground which archaeologists had expected, contained around about 1,300 burials, including about 400 complete skeletons.

 And experts made the sinister discovery that many of the skeletons did not fit their graves.

 An Archaeological Journal report on the excavation said: “This suggests that some, but not all of the graves may have been dug in advance of being needed.

 “One possibility is that this occurred prior to the winter, when ground conditions would have potentially made digging graves considerably more difficult.”

 One skeleton found in a grave which was too big for the body

 The bodies, which mostly date from a period spanning the 13th to 15th centuries, are burials from the medieval Hospital of St John the Evangelist which stood opposite the graveyard until 1511, and from which St John's College takes its name.

 Craig Cessford, from the university's department of archaeology and anthropology, said it was one of the largest finds of its kind in the UK.

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 Although the existence and location of the cemetery have been known to historians since at least the mid-twentieth century, the sheer scale and extent of the burial ground was unclear until now.

 The vast majority of burials were without coffins, many even without shrouds, suggesting the cemetery was primarily used to serve the poor.

 There were very few bodies belonging to women and children - probably because its main purpose was to cater for "poor scholars and other wretched persons" and pregnant women were excluded from its care.

 Grave-goods such as jewellery and personal items were only present in a handful of burials but they included a jet crucifix and the head of a woman.

 A crucifix found in one of the graves

 Dr Cessford said: "Evidence for clothing and grave-goods is rarer than at most hospital cemeteries.

 "This is principally because this was a purely lay graveyard with no clerics present.

 "Items were found in graves that might represent grave-goods, but their positions were ambiguous and it is equally possible that they represent residual material from earlier activity at the site."

 Originally a small building on a patch of waste ground, the hospital grew with church support to be a noted place of hospitality and care for both university scholars and local people.

 Archaeologists working at Cambridge

 Despite local rumours linking the hospital cemetery to the Black Death, no evidence of this disease was found on any of the remains and the team did not find any sign of large burial groups from that period of the 14th century.

 In later centuries, plague victims in Cambridge were buried on local grazing land such as Midsummer Common, and it is likely that the same locations were used in the medieval period as well.

 Most of the bodies were buried in neatly laid-out rows or deposited in a building on the site.

 The cemetery was found to have had gravel paths and a water well, along with seeds from various flowering plants, suggesting that much like today's cemeteries, it was a place for people to come and visit their deceased loved ones.

 The bodies surprisingly did not exhibit many serious illnesses and conditions that would have required medical attention.

 The graveyard was found during the refurbishment of St John's College at Cambridge University ||||| One of the largest medieval hospital burial grounds in Britain, containing an estimated 1,300 burials, once stood on the site of what is now a Cambridge College, according to a report published in the latest issue of the Archaeological Journal.

 The report marks the first public release of evidence gathered by an archaeological dig beneath the Old Divinity School at St John’s College, conducted as part of the Victorian building’s refurbishment in 2010-2012. Images from the dig, showing almost perfectly preserved medieval skeletons unearthed after centuries of burial, are also being released for the first time today.

 The report reveals that the complete skeletal remains of over 400 medieval burials were uncovered by a team from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit, along with “disarticulated” and fragmentary remains of what could be as many as 1,000 more individuals.

 While the existence and location of the cemetery have been known to historians since at least the mid-twentieth century, the sheer scale and extent of the burial ground was unclear until now.

 The bodies, which mostly date from a period spanning the 13th to 15th centuries, are burials from the medieval Hospital of St John the Evangelist which stood opposite the graveyard until 1511, and from which St John’s College takes its name. The number of remains discovered was far more than the team had expected, and they shed significant new light on life and death in medieval Cambridge. Craig Cessford of the Cambridge University Department of Archaeology and Anthropology led the dig and authored the report. He said the Old Divinity School excavation was “one of the largest medieval hospital osteoarcheological assemblages from the British Isles”.

 The site of the Old Divinity School, built in 1877-1879, was formerly the burial ground of the Hospital, instituted around 1195 by the townspeople of Cambridge to care for the poor and sick in the community. Originally merely a small building on a patch of waste ground, the Hospital grew with Church support to be a noted place of hospitality and care for both University scholars and local people.

 Despite local rumours linking the Hospital cemetery to the Black Death, no evidence of this disease was found on any of the remains, nor did the team find any sign of large burial groups from that period (1348-1350). In later centuries, plague victims in Cambridge were buried on local grazing land such as Midsummer Common, and it is likely that the same locations were used in the medieval period as well.

 The Hospital cemetery, dating from the early 13th century, contained the bodies of approximately 1,300 people, most of which were buried in neatly laid-out rows, or deposited in a charnel house on the site. The team, from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit, found the cemetery to have six “cemetery generations”, defined as the time taken to fill all available space before burying other bodies in the same locations.

 The cemetery was found to have had gravel paths and a water well, along with seeds from various flowering plants, suggesting that much like today’s cemeteries, it was a place for people to come and visit their deceased loved ones.

 Of the various human remains excavated by the team, 400 individuals were closely analysed to discover clues as to the nature of the cemetery and the surrounding community. The vast majority of burials took place without coffins, many even without shrouds, suggesting the cemetery was primarily used to serve the poor. Grave-goods such as jewellery and personal items were only present in a handful of burials.

 “Evidence for clothing and grave-goods is rarer than at most hospital cemeteries”, said Dr Cessford, “principally because this was a purely lay graveyard with no clerics present. Items were found in graves that might represent grave-goods, but their positions were ambiguous and it is equally possible that they represent residual material from earlier activity at the site”.

 Also of interest to the archaeologists was the relative lack of remains of young women and complete absence of infants, which would normally be expected in a medieval hospital cemetery. Of the remains that could be identified, there seems to have been a roughly equal gender balance, with the majority of individuals having died between around 25 and 45 years old. The lack of young female remains can probably be explained by the Hospital’s Augustinian ordinance from 1250 which established its areas of concern to be “poor scholars and other wretched persons”, and specifically excluded pregnant women from its care.

 The bodies surprisingly did not exhibit many serious illnesses and conditions that would have required medical attention. The Archaeological Journal report suggests that “this could reflect that the main role of the Hospital was spiritual and physical care of the poor and infirm rather than medical treatment of the sick and injured”.

 The full report has been published in the latest issue of the Archaeological Journal, number 172. |||||
What is a summary?

– Historians have long known that a medieval cemetery existed on the grounds of what is now the University of Cambridge, but until a recent dig they didn't realize just how big it was. Archaeologists uncovered the full or partial remains of about 1,300 people beneath Old Divinity School at the university's St. John's College. The numbers make it one of Britain's largest medieval cemeteries, reports the Guardian. Most of the people were buried between the 13th and 15th centuries, when the cemetery was in operation near the ancient Hospital of St. John the Evangelist. Most were buried without coffins or shrouds, suggesting they were poor, notes the Telegraph. Unusual for cemeteries of this era was the lack of infants and young women, likely because the nearby hospital did not treat pregnant women and instead focused on "poor scholars and other wretched persons," reports the University of Cambridge. Archaeologists also found evidence of gravel paths, seeds, and a water well, meaning that the cemetery seemed to be a place where loved ones would visit and pay their respects. (Click to read about how a medieval potion might help against modern superbugs.)