Cold Case - Bodies in the Well
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00:00At the University of Dundee's Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification, the History Cold
00:09Case team is embarking on a major new investigation.
00:13Ladies, today's case, Medieval Norwich. We've got disarticulated remains of at least 17
00:22people.
00:23Using a mobile forensic lab, the team has come to Norwich, where recent archaeological
00:28investigations have unearthed a major and chilling new find. The remains of 17 people
00:35at the bottom of a medieval well.
00:39Disarticulated, which means we're not looking at single burials, so presumably it's a massed
00:46grave.
00:48The bodies include men, women and young children. The local community needs answers. Who were
00:56these people and how did their remains end up down a well? The possibilities are horrific.
01:04Some debate as to whether the children were dead when they went down the well.
01:08The investigation will be led by world-renowned forensic anthropologist, Professor Sue Black.
01:13Dr Xanthi Mallet will gather historical evidence, while Professor Caroline Wilkinson will rebuild
01:20the faces of the dead. And the team is joined by DNA expert, Dr Ian Barnes.
01:27I've got a team that is of world-renowned reputation, so that if we can't crack it,
01:32then, you know, who else can?
01:35By forensically retracing events, analysing the scene of death and reconstructing the
01:41identities of two of the skeletons, can we discover what happened to these people?
01:49This is a really unusual situation for us. I think this is really unique.
01:54And ultimately, might this case reveal the unthinkable? That they were killed?
01:59You simply can't breathe because your chest is compressed.
02:03We go back to a shocking period of widespread religious persecution and genocide.
02:08They haven't applied normal Christian tradition. They've completely ignored it.
02:15As the trail reveals new proof about one of the most shameful episodes in British history.
02:46The team has been called to the cathedral city of Norwich.
02:52While much of the city's heritage remains intact, the medieval site where the skeletons
02:57were discovered in 2004 now lies underneath the Chapelfield shopping centre.
03:07Inside a mobile forensic unit, local archaeologists lay out the bones.
03:14The jumbled remains point to at least 17 individuals.
03:21It's thought there are six adults, both male and female.
03:25But more shockingly, 11 children, aged from just two years old.
03:34This is one of the most troubling archaeological hauls the team has been presented with.
03:44Who were these people? What killed them?
03:48And why did their bodies end up at the bottom of a well?
03:53Finding out will require the full arsenal of forensic skills.
04:03Professor Caroline Wilkinson and Dr Xanthe Mallett will initiate the investigation.
04:09Before reporting back to Professor Sue Black at Dundee HQ.
04:16This time round we go out into the community. So we go down to the site where the bones were found.
04:22We talk to the people who were involved and we look at those bones on that site.
04:27We then go and do our analysis and we come back and we present to the community what it is that we found.
04:34Connecting the skeletons to the context of where they were found is a crucial first step in what promises to be a challenging case.
04:43The original excavation was led by archaeologist Giles Emery.
04:47He arrives at the mobile lab to bring Xanthe up to speed with the possible theories about this bizarre discovery.
04:54When we first found them we suspected it could be a plague burial.
05:00Because that's the kind of thing, you know, a mass burial in an unexpected place.
05:05To test the idea that these were plague victims they did carbon dating.
05:10We've had two carbon dates done. They're actually, we're probably talking 12th to 13th century.
05:17But the dates didn't add up as the 12th or 13th century is too early for plague.
05:23Plus there's the strange position in which the bodies were found.
05:27Several metres down in what seems to be an old well.
05:30Giles is hoping the team can come up with some new leads to explain this unique find.
05:42He takes Xanthe to the exact spot where the bodies were discovered.
05:46The shoppers have no idea about the history that lay buried here.
05:51So we stop about here.
05:53OK.
05:54Well, we're in quite a busy shopping arcade.
05:57But to our left here, this is where we found them.
05:59This is the actual shop?
06:00Yeah, this is the site.
06:0117 people in the bottom of a well shaft.
06:03That sounds unusual to me.
06:05Yeah, it's a mass burial but it's in a well shaft.
06:07Which, yeah, I've not been able to find any parallels.
06:10Anywhere?
06:11In the UK, no.
06:12Really?
06:13Pictures taken at the time of the excavation seem to indicate that this is the site.
06:18Pictures taken at the time of the excavation seem to indicate
06:21that the bodies were thrown down together, head first.
06:26Oh, wow.
06:27You can see all these skeletal remains.
06:30There's actually a leg there that is articulated.
06:32There's a knee there and it's actually the wrong way round, it's heading up.
06:35If you imagine you drop someone by their ankles down a well,
06:38they're going to end up in this kind of slumped position.
06:41But there are still so many unanswered questions.
06:44What I really want to know is, is it a family group?
06:47Is it possibly for a plague burial? Is it some other endemic disease?
06:50Could be something as simple as flu there.
06:52Could even be a famine.
06:53The other problem I have is, what are they doing down a well?
06:56Yeah, that's a bit of a query.
06:58They're in the parish of St Stephen, literally 100 metres away.
07:01There's a cemetery.
07:02They didn't make it that far.
07:04They were actually placed in a well here.
07:06Why? Why were they treated like that?
07:09The mystery has become something of an obsession for giants.
07:13It's one of those things I think about literally every other week.
07:16It crossed my mind.
07:17Why?
07:18Whenever you do a burial, it's a very intimate experience,
07:21but to do that many and then to find out there were so many children as well,
07:25it really does make you think.
07:26Touching.
07:27It has, yeah.
07:31Xanthi and Caroline must start the difficult job of making sense of the bones,
07:38which they learn also include the puzzling remains of dead cats.
07:44How they fit with this, I've no idea.
07:48Pretty sharp, though.
07:51This is a bit of a strange mixture, isn't it?
07:53Cheers.
07:55They start with the remains of the children.
07:57There are at least 11 individuals, aged from about 15 down to two years old.
08:04And we've got a mandible.
08:07Oh, OK, look, we've got some cribriorbitalis, which is these little holes,
08:11which is a sign of anaemia.
08:16Immediately, they spot marks which could be evidence of poor nutrition.
08:23But on this initial visual examination, Xanthi and Caroline find no clear patterns.
08:33It will require a full battery of the latest scientific tests
08:37to help establish how these people died.
08:42MUSIC
08:48The team continues to work into the night.
08:52Two of the skeletons are singled out as good candidates for facial reconstruction.
08:58Caroline first scans the fractured skull of one of the children.
09:02He or she was five to seven years old.
09:06I think that we've got enough fragments, if they're all from the same individual,
09:11we've got enough fragments to do a reconstruction.
09:13We'll have to do a little bit of estimation around the mid-face.
09:16If they're not all from the same individual, then that will be much more problematic.
09:24She also wants to work on the skull belonging to one of the adult males.
09:30The skull's got interesting features around the nasal bones
09:33because they're very large and prominent, suggesting a very large and prominent nose.
09:37We've got this level of asymmetry around the eyes,
09:40one's much higher and further back than the other.
09:42And then we've got strong, what are called supramastoid crests,
09:46which are lines above the ear,
09:48which suggests that this person had large ears that stuck out from the side of the head.
09:54So he's got good characteristic detail in terms of his facial appearance.
09:59I'm looking forward to this, actually,
10:01because it's not often you get such characteristic detail that you notice straight away,
10:06so he should be an interesting face.
10:10To begin the laboratory testing, she removes one of his teeth.
10:15We're going to take this molar and send it for stable isotope analysis,
10:19and that should tell us what he ate, what his diet was like,
10:23therefore where he came from,
10:25and hopefully give us a broader picture of this individual.
10:30The bones will also be tested for DNA and trace chemicals,
10:35which could tell us more about who these people were.
10:38It's around this barrage of scientific tests that the team will build their investigation.
10:51But will they be able to bring identities back to the two skeletons they selected,
10:56the man and child?
11:00Back in Dundee, Xanthi brings Professor Black up to speed.
11:04I've got a CGI, actually, which is for you, which is fantastic, actually.
11:10So this is obviously rows of houses right in the centre,
11:14kind of where you'd have your bins out in the back garden, as it were.
11:17So the well is right in the middle of this community.
11:21Oh, I don't like going down.
11:23I know, it makes you want to lean over the edge.
11:26You can see the soil compacting all of them down into one group.
11:29That's great.
11:31A thin layer of soil on top of the bodies means they were deposited at the same time.
11:36The obvious first question is, was this foul play?
11:41They could have actually been murdered and put down the well.
11:44Are we talking about that sort of thing?
11:47Yes.
11:48It's a bit of a mystery.
11:50They could have actually been murdered and put down the well.
11:53Are we talking about that type of event?
11:55Disposal.
11:56Exactly.
11:57Well, only if we see any signs of perimortem trauma
12:01that would indicate a violent death.
12:03The apparent lack of damage caused around the time of death
12:07means they dismiss the idea of murder, for now at least.
12:12So is this perhaps a place where the sick or deprived ended up when they died?
12:17So this is a time of kind of hardship in England.
12:20You did get famine and things.
12:22There was some signs of anemia.
12:24Okay.
12:25Or are we talking about some type of disease that's hit the population?
12:30The fact that we've got so many children could be dysentery, something like that.
12:35Obviously, if a lot of individuals die at the same time,
12:38you need to remove them from the population as quickly as possible and get rid of them.
12:43You don't really want them hanging around, do you?
12:45No.
12:46The team agrees that poverty and disease are the obvious places to start to look for a cause of death.
12:58The remains may yet yield some other crucial information.
13:02Geneticist Dr Ian Barnes takes samples from the long leg bones of eight of the skeletons,
13:08including the adult male and the five- to seven-year-old child.
13:14Ian is helping us out enormously in terms of the DNA,
13:17and Ian has a worldwide reputation in terms of his science.
13:22And I don't think I've met anybody who knows more about the subject than he does,
13:27but has the ability to convey it in a manner that is really quite straightforward,
13:32which is what most of us need when it comes to genetics.
13:36If the people in the well turn out to be related,
13:39then this could dramatically change the complexion of the case.
13:45But it will be several weeks before the DNA results are back.
13:56Meanwhile, to start the historical investigation,
13:59Xanthi needs to understand what Norwich was like in the 11 and 1200s.
14:05At that time, Norwich was England's second largest city,
14:09its expansion built on its position as a major centre of manufacture and trade.
14:15The population had ballooned to over 12,000,
14:19but who was living in the immediate area around the well?
14:27Xanthi hopes the Norwich records office will yield some clues.
14:31She meets archivist Susan Maddock,
14:33who produces a surprising and rare document from the time.
14:37So this looks exciting.
14:38Yes, this is one of the city court rolls.
14:40It covers 1287 to 1298.
14:42Is this original?
14:43This is original.
14:44Then I will not touch that.
14:46I'll let you unroll it.
14:48It's probably as valuable as it looks.
14:50Yes, it certainly is.
14:51I mean, obviously, it's unique and irreplaceable.
14:53OK.
14:54Didn't say that to frighten you.
14:56What's this made from?
14:58Well, it's made from parchment, which is sheepskin,
15:01so it's scraped and cleaned and makes a very durable writing surface.
15:05So this was the main medium used for records in this country,
15:09really, until paper became popular in the 14th, 15th centuries.
15:13It's a record of property ownership in 13th-century Norwich.
15:18Susan is looking for a street name she can trace to near the well.
15:24I just gently unroll it.
15:27Now, what we're looking for...
15:29Ah, yes, in the margin here,
15:32we can see this little marginal note that looks like N-E-D-A.
15:37So this is Latin?
15:38This is Latin, yes.
15:40And that's pointing out this word here, nidum, N-E-D-H-A-M.
15:46And I see, looking at a modern reconstruction map of Norwich,
15:50which shows the medieval street names,
15:52and on this map it's shown as Vicus, which is the Latin for street,
15:56de Nedum.
15:57So we can see that matches with the Nedum in Ardede here.
16:00So this street was originally called Vicus de Nedum?
16:04Yes, or Nedum or Needum Street.
16:06Right.
16:07So the block that I'm interested in on here
16:10is represented by this area here?
16:12It is, yes.
16:13Isn't that right?
16:14Yes.
16:15The document also reveals the occupation of this street.
16:20I can't help noticing that in this map,
16:23there are a lot of butchers turning up.
16:25Butcher, butcher, butcher, merchant.
16:28Is there any evidence of tanning or skinning,
16:31those kind of industries?
16:32Because there were cat bones down the well,
16:35kind of mixed in with the human bones.
16:37I'm wondering whether we might actually find something on here
16:40that would help explain that a little bit.
16:43Well, let's give it a try.
16:46I notice there's a skinner down here,
16:48and this is only a short distance away from your area.
16:51It's probably like four doors down.
16:53Yes.
16:541295, we've got John de Saeum, the skinner.
16:57Wow.
16:58And if we actually look at the other side,
17:01moving along what's now St Stephen's Street,
17:04this diagram here,
17:05there are quite a number of tanners in this area
17:08towards Horse Market.
17:09So, again, the right time period.
17:11Yes.
17:12So, yeah, these people could have actually been living
17:15in or very near the people who ended up down the well.
17:19So we're really looking at working-class people, aren't we,
17:22which fits with everything else I think I've found out.
17:25So, were our people local skinners or tanners?
17:29And if so, could their profession offer clues as to a cause of death?
17:33Xanthe hits the streets of Norwich's Old Town
17:36with local historian Brian Ayres.
17:38Isn't it lovely?
17:39It's very picturesque now,
17:40but it would have been distinctly less picturesque
17:44in the 12th and 13th centuries.
17:46I mean, we're on a street which is next to the river.
17:50This is a river which a whole range of industries are using
17:54for dye works, for tanners, for skinners.
17:57So the dirtier trades.
17:59The dirtier trades.
18:00So all this effluent material is flowing down behind the buildings
18:04which would have been stood here.
18:06This could explain the puzzling cat bones in the well,
18:09which may be a by-product of the manufacture of catskin gloves.
18:13Highly prized across medieval Europe.
18:15This was just one aspect of a widespread skinning and tanning industry,
18:20and it was dirty work.
18:22Medieval tanners often used human urine and faeces
18:25collected door to door to soften the leather.
18:28Your life expectancy is probably going to be less in Norwich
18:32than it is out in the countryside
18:34because of the noxious fumes and the poor living conditions,
18:37but it will be a shorter life but probably an economically better one,
18:42potentially a better one.
18:43That's an interesting one, isn't it?
18:45So one does get people arriving here for that very reason.
18:50It's clear that poor hygiene and harsh working conditions
18:54would have made local people vulnerable to serious infection.
19:02Back in Dundee, Caroline is ready to start the facial reconstructions.
19:07We've got the skull of the male adult from the Norwich well.
19:12You can see the bits that are pale are the pieces of bone that we have,
19:17and the green areas are the areas that I've had to estimate.
19:21We just had this one piece of missing mandible.
19:25So all round I'm quite interested by this skull.
19:28It's got lots of nice characteristic detail.
19:32The shattered skull of the child requires much more work, however.
19:37We've got to put together these fragments
19:39before we can do any reconstruction,
19:41and what we can do in the computer is we can take one of the pieces.
19:45Here we've got part of the forehead,
19:48and we can move it so that it's touching the other piece
19:53and realign it.
19:56We can put it roughly in the right position and then we can tweak it.
20:01So this is our skull when it's been totally reassembled.
20:14Those are the areas that have been estimated in green.
20:19Reconstructions of children have their own unique challenges.
20:24It's very difficult to tell whether the individual is male or female
20:28when the child is this young.
20:30So girls and boys between the ages of five and seven
20:35are indistinguishable facially.
20:38We tend to judge the sex of a child in relation to their hairstyle,
20:43the clothes that they're wearing,
20:45how they're being treated by others around them.
20:47We're actually very bad at estimating
20:49whether a child is male or female from just the face,
20:52especially at this age.
20:56Soon actual faces will start to emerge
20:59as Caroline adds the muscle, skin and features to each reconstruction.
21:06With squalid living conditions around the well area
21:09and apparent signs of malnutrition on the bones but no obvious trauma,
21:13is disease now the most likely culprit in the story of what happened to these people?
21:18And if so, what killed them?
21:23The 11 and 1200s marked a time of huge population growth for Norwich
21:27and the sick started to be catered for in new charitable medical centres.
21:31It is, it's amazing.
21:33Founded in 1249.
21:34The Great Hospital of Norwich was one of the first of its kind in Britain.
21:38Xanthe meets Professor Carol Rawcliffe here,
21:41a specialist in medieval health.
21:44I actually have a photograph of one of the specimens I've been looking at.
21:52And she's interesting because obviously we've got some of those Glico markers.
21:56We've got the Cripple Batalia.
21:58That's a sign of iron deficiency.
22:01And what's fascinating is that other excavations in Norwich
22:06have revealed a very high incidence of this,
22:08up to 70% in some cases, among women and children.
22:12And what may not be known is that during the Middle Ages and later,
22:17malaria is endemic in parts of England.
22:20And that also will increase levels of anaemia.
22:23Carol thinks it's entirely possible the people in the well
22:27died of a then incurable disease such as malaria,
22:30which was rife in the overcrowded city of the 12th and 13th centuries.
22:34It's rather like the developing world today.
22:38Here in the city you are encountering diseases and deficiencies
22:42which we no longer have to experience.
22:45It's likely there could have been an epidemic of influenza,
22:48perhaps dysentery, perhaps typhus.
22:51It's very hard to tell.
22:53But obviously something which is killing people in quite large numbers.
22:57Charitable hospitals had close links to the church
23:01and the sick believed going to hospital could erase their burden of sin.
23:05Even the poor could expect to receive medical care.
23:09The theory that our people fell victim to disease
23:13certainly fits the facts so far.
23:17But if 17 people died at the same time, where would they have been buried?
23:22Would their bodies have been disposed of in a well?
23:33To find out how people were buried during the epidemics
23:36which hit Britain in the Middle Ages,
23:38Xanthi heads to Bishopsgate in London,
23:41once the site of a vast medieval cemetery.
23:47No other burials in wells have ever been found in the UK.
23:51But under the pavement here is an extraordinary site
23:55called the Charnel House,
23:57where hundreds of bodies have been excavated from deep shafts.
24:01The way people were laid to rest here might offer vital clues.
24:05Hello, Chris. I'm behind the wall.
24:07Welcome to the Charnel House.
24:09Fantastic. Oh, shall we go out the rain?
24:11If you come in this way.
24:14Chris Thomas, from the Museum of London, excavated this site,
24:19which was used for a huge number of mass burials.
24:23This Charnel House sits in the middle of a cemetery
24:26that we excavated about 10,500 skeletons from.
24:30Wow.
24:31And it was in use from around about 1150 till 1540.
24:35And it's a cemetery that's associated with a medieval hospital.
24:39Most of the people are buried in individual graves,
24:42but we had thousands of people buried in mass burial pits.
24:46Right.
24:47And a whole series of shafts with people buried on top of each other.
24:52And what you find, generally speaking,
24:54even in black death burial grounds, any sort of emergency burial ground,
24:58the people are usually buried in Christian manner.
25:01So you can see from some of the burials that we had,
25:04even in our mass burial pits,
25:07the skeletons are still being laid out on their back
25:10and their head at the west end, their feet at the east.
25:13OK, so even in mass burials,
25:15the placement of the body is still really important.
25:17It is.
25:18So the myth that people are thrown off the back of carts into pits
25:22in the black death simply isn't true.
25:24So if I just show you some of the pictures from my site,
25:27you may get a better idea.
25:29Now, this is a well shaft, and you can see they're all completely intermixed.
25:34This just looks almost like rubbish thrown away,
25:37all mixed up, no care.
25:39Yeah, I think the difference is absolutely fundamental.
25:42Whoever has dealt with this,
25:44they haven't applied normal Christian tradition,
25:47they've completely ignored it.
25:53What Santhe learns from the charnel house
25:56makes the well burial even more confusing.
25:59Even during the worst outbreaks of disease,
26:02people were not just thrown into the nearest hole.
26:05The church taught that to be buried in a non-Christian way
26:08would lead to purgatory and hell.
26:11Medieval Norwich was a devout Christian city
26:14with over 40 parish churches.
26:18So, why weren't our 17 people buried with the usual care?
26:25Could it be because they weren't Christians?
26:29This is not a Christian burial.
26:31So do we have people who are not of the Christian faith?
26:36Is that why they're there?
26:38Or is it that they're some form of an outcast?
26:40Was it that people were afraid of them?
26:42I don't know, but they were not dealt with with respect.
26:48The stable isotope data are back, and the results are intriguing.
26:53What they reveal is that the people found down the well
26:56had lived in the local area for many years.
26:59They were not just visiting.
27:02The trail suddenly now points towards non-Christian locals.
27:10And there's only one significant community from the time
27:13that matches that profile.
27:18Since 1135, Norwich was home to a thriving Jewish community,
27:22living just a few hundred yards from the well site.
27:27Xanthi meets up with Sophie Cabot,
27:30a specialist in Norwich's Jewish history,
27:33to find out more about this community.
27:36The Jewry in Norwich in the Middle Ages
27:39was in this position between the market and the castle.
27:42The castle's just up there, obviously the market's behind us,
27:45and the properties owned by Jews were concentrated
27:48in the area from White Lion Street here
27:50right up to Little Orford Street at the far end of this block.
27:53Is the proximity of the Jewry to the castle important?
27:56It is, yeah. Norwich is a royal castle.
27:59They were in England at the invitation of the crown,
28:02and the crown had direct legal control over them and their business.
28:06The Jews of Norwich had a very specific role.
28:09And why were they actually invited here by the king?
28:12They were invited to lend money.
28:14And that was their primary function?
28:16Yeah, yeah.
28:18At the time, the Christian interpretation of the Bible
28:21didn't allow Christians to lend money at interest.
28:24It was a sin called usury.
28:26Certainly that's something that's not forbidden in Jewish law,
28:30so cash finance for big projects of any sort came from Jewish finances.
28:34Almost like banks? Yeah, like banks, basically.
28:37Does that mean they were all wealthy, then?
28:39Some of them were extremely wealthy.
28:41There's one or two families who are incredibly rich
28:45and who are lending money on a national scale or even an international scale.
28:50Santhe and Sophie visit the house of Isaac Jernet,
28:53which still stands in central Norwich.
28:58Despite having financed the cathedral,
29:00like many Jews across Christian Europe,
29:03the Jernets may have been subject to persecution.
29:07This is him here, shown at the top.
29:09With a crown?
29:11Wearing a crown, yes, showing how important he is,
29:14and also with three profiles, three faces.
29:18It seems to mean that he's into everything,
29:21that he's got fingers in lots of pies.
29:23Oh, I see.
29:24This is a caricature.
29:26This was drawn by a Christian, by a scribe in the Exchequer.
29:30They, as you can see, have rather caricatured faces, big noses.
29:34This is a hat that indicates that Moses is Jewish.
29:37They're not kind drawings. No.
29:40And they're shown with this little devil who is tweaking them on the nose.
29:44Would you say that it's anti-Semitic?
29:46Because it's certainly not complementary.
29:48There's resentment of the fact that Jews are making money.
29:52Some Jews, like Isaac, are making a huge amount of money,
29:55and they're doing it in a way that doesn't involve physical labour
29:59or things that are necessarily recognised as work.
30:02It's a bit like people feel about bankers now.
30:06But Sophie thinks it's unlikely the skeletons in the well
30:09came from the Jewish community.
30:12On the site of the old synagogue,
30:14Sophie explains how they would have taken as much care over burial
30:17as Norwich's Christians.
30:20You would want it to be quick,
30:22so you would be ideally buried within 24 hours of your death.
30:25Really?
30:26You would want it to be very simple,
30:28so you would be washed and wrapped in a shroud.
30:32It's quite a simple ceremony,
30:34but it's got to be done right and in a dignified way.
30:36Well, you've kind of pre-empted my other question then.
30:38So you don't think that the Jewish community
30:40would have put other Jewish individuals in the well?
30:43No, I don't. I think it's pretty much impossible.
30:46I think if there were any Jews in the community
30:49to see that the dead got a proper burial,
30:51that's what they would do.
30:55If the bodies in the well were Jewish,
30:58this would point to foul play.
31:02It would suggest that their burial was deliberately careless or rushed.
31:07We know that across Britain and Europe at this time,
31:10Jewish people were increasingly victims of vicious hate attacks.
31:14Could this be what happened to our 17 people in Norwich?
31:28The DNA analysis is now complete.
31:31Aware that the case now risks grinding to a halt,
31:34the team hopes the results will provide a new lead.
31:40So how many did we take DNA samples from out of the, what was it, 17?
31:45I think we sampled eight, eight different individuals.
31:48So from children through to adults?
31:50Yeah, we tried to get a range.
31:52Well, the DNA will perhaps not only tell us about family,
31:54but if there is any other connection, genetic type connection,
31:58you know, in a tight-knit group,
32:00then Ian might be able to tell us something about that.
32:02So fingers crossed for DNA.
32:04Yeah.
32:05Our money's on DNA.
32:07They call Dr Ian Barnes.
32:11There we are.
32:12Hello.
32:13Hi.
32:14We are looking today at medieval Norwich.
32:18We're hoping, against all hope,
32:20that you'll have something interesting to tell us.
32:22No pressure.
32:24OK, so some pretty interesting news for this film.
32:27Oh, good!
32:29OK, so we actually got eight samples.
32:32Yeah.
32:33Of the eight, one of them looks like there might be some contamination
32:37or maybe it's heavily damaged in some way.
32:39OK.
32:40So disregard that one.
32:42The remaining seven,
32:44one of them has a very generic standard European DNA type.
32:50OK.
32:51One of them has a DNA type which is relatively,
32:57relatively uncommon across Europe,
33:01but it's still just a generic European kind of sequence.
33:04OK.
33:05The other five, however, have the same mitochondrial DNA.
33:09Oh!
33:10So it looks like the five that have the same sequence,
33:14you could maybe assume or infer that they are directly internally related.
33:19Right.
33:20Remarkably, five of the people down the well were related to each other.
33:25But that's not all the DNA results reveal.
33:29Now, the more unusual thing is that there are sequences belonging to a group
33:35which is relatively unusual in Europe.
33:38It occurs at about something like 6%,
33:42but it's at very high frequency, more like over 30%,
33:46in Ashkenazi Jewish populations.
33:49Wow. That's interesting. That's just amazing.
33:52So that's for how many individuals?
33:54Five.
33:55So that's five that we're happy with.
33:58It's an unexpected breakthrough in the case.
34:01The science has shown that at least five of the people down the well
34:04were from the Jewish community and likely family members.
34:10This is a really unusual situation for us.
34:13I think this is a really unique set of data
34:16that we've been able to get for these individuals.
34:19I'm not aware that this has been done before,
34:22but we've been actually able to pin them down to this level of specificity
34:28about the ethnic group that they seem to come from.
34:31That's a good result. That's phenomenal.
34:33Thank you so much indeed.
34:35Bye.
34:36Bye-bye.
34:37I think what Ian has told us is truly amazing.
34:41It is.
34:42In that we clearly have family members.
34:46We've got a recognised group.
34:48And this is really pointing to something,
34:50the most tragic of all of those options as well,
34:53with 11 children of a common maternal DNA.
34:59The story now looks set to take a much darker turn.
35:04There is a real temptation, I think, to go down the route of saying,
35:09because we've recognised the group, because we know they're a family,
35:13we're looking at something that's possibly more macabre,
35:16that we're looking at persecution.
35:18What we haven't yet got is the cause of death or causes of death.
35:24I think we probably should go back to some of the bones and just have a look
35:28because I am concerned that we haven't got any form of a trauma.
35:32I mean, dropping down the well would cause trauma.
35:35And the prospect that maybe someone's gone down that well alive...
35:40Especially kids.
35:41...is horrendous.
35:47Sue's previous experience leads her to believe
35:50this could now be a case of mass murder.
35:54We're possibly talking about persecution,
35:57we're possibly talking about ethnic cleansing.
35:59And this all brings to mind very much the scenario
36:02that we dealt with during the Balkans war crimes.
36:05In terms of the brutality of the ethnic cleansing,
36:09it was felt that, you know, women and children, quite frankly,
36:13weren't worth wasting the bullet on.
36:15So that women were quite often bayoneted, for example.
36:18Pregnant women were bayoneted because that way you got rid of a woman
36:21because that wasn't important.
36:22And you got rid of the next generation
36:24because you really didn't want them to survive.
36:27So I know what sort of patterns I'm looking for
36:29if it was the same sort of situation
36:31where these individuals thrown down the well alive
36:34were these individuals killed before they went down the well.
36:41With this new question in mind,
36:43Sue goes back to the bones again
36:45to examine the legs and spinal columns in minute detail
36:49and on one of the adults makes a crucial new discovery.
36:54If you open up and look at the surface of the 12th thoracic,
37:00you can see that we've got what looks like a burst fracture
37:03and it's coming over onto the surface here at the side
37:07and coming over onto the front there.
37:09That kind of thing happens when you get force
37:13either coming down onto legs or, of course, coming down onto head
37:18so that what you're getting is a twisting,
37:21because that's what happens, you get a twisting
37:23and the edge of one vertebra causes the fracture on the body.
37:27So the column is twisting and as you impact
37:31then what you get is the burst fractures.
37:35And there is similar damage to three of the adult leg bones.
37:40When we look particularly at these three bones,
37:44what we've got are radiating fracture lines passing up there
37:50and we've got little stepped areas of cortex there
37:54with a little fracture coming.
37:56Those again look like they're going to be perimortem.
38:00All of these indicating that what we have
38:04are individuals where we have trauma to the extended leg.
38:09So whether it's going down, it must be landing on feet
38:13or landing on knees, of course, it could be,
38:16but it's certainly trauma of force of impact.
38:19If you were falling into water,
38:21then I wouldn't expect to find this fracturing.
38:24I simply wouldn't, because once you hit the water surface
38:28then you've got almost like a cushioning, if you like.
38:31These are fractures that I suspect are about landing on a hard surface.
38:37Sue believes this new evidence shows the well was actually dry
38:41and the adult victims were either killed just before
38:45or died very shortly after being thrown down the well.
38:49If they're down at the bottom of the well and these are the adults,
38:53then the children who are receiving no trauma
38:56may well have been thrown in on top of them.
38:58So we're not going to see perimortem fracturing as such with them
39:02because they're landing on a cushion of these adults.
39:08It's an alarming possible sequence of events.
39:12So, what would a modern homicide detective
39:15make of the circumstances of this case?
39:19Xanthi meets up with forensic pathologist Stuart Hamilton
39:23in Norwich Castle, which still has an intact well shaft.
39:30That's a long way, isn't it?
39:32That's a difficult question.
39:34It's a long way.
39:37That's a long way, isn't it?
39:39That's a deep well, yes.
39:41Somebody falling in there or being pushed, whatever,
39:44are they going to survive that?
39:46They're not going to survive that fall.
39:48If the simple impact at the bottom doesn't kill them outright,
39:52then the deceleration is going to tear arteries,
39:56it's going to damage organs.
39:58You're going to bleed to death fairly rapidly,
40:01even if you don't die straight away.
40:03You're not going to be alive for long.
40:05What would you say, if this were a forensic case presented to you,
40:0817 people in a well, what would be your reading of it?
40:11One person in a well like that, to me, is something that's worrying.
40:16Two people is very worrying.
40:1817 people is... It's a mass grave.
40:21Would I put a slightly different slant on this, in your opinion,
40:25if I were to tell you that all of the individuals
40:28were from a minority group?
40:30I think it's almost just common sense, really.
40:33The evidence is saying that it is a particular group
40:36which seems to have been targeted.
40:38In this sort of case, it's the accumulation of the evidence.
40:41It's not just one piece or the other piece.
40:43As it all builds up more and more and more,
40:46you simply can't ignore all of these things coming together.
40:50And he feels the lack of fatal trauma on all of the bones
40:53does not rule out murder.
40:55It's not uncommon that you can get homicides
40:58where there really would be nothing left on the bones.
41:01Relatively recently, I've dealt with a case
41:03where there was a homicidal knife assault with neck wounds.
41:08Arteries were damaged, but no bony injuries at all.
41:14Stuart explains another cause of death that leaves no marks
41:18but may fit with so many people being thrown down a narrow well.
41:24The average adult human weighs 70kg,
41:27and that amount of pressure pressing down on you
41:30with multiple people, it's going to compress your chest.
41:33There is a well-recognised phenomenon
41:36that's called crush asphyxia,
41:38where you simply can't breathe because your chest is compressed,
41:42and that could be by a wall that's fallen on you,
41:44but it could be by a pile of human beings.
41:46And some of the disasters with the football stadium,
41:50people crushed against fences,
41:52you simply can't move your chest because it's crushed so tightly,
41:56and it doesn't really bear thinking about in some ways.
41:59What's your gut instinct as to what happened?
42:02I... For these people's sake,
42:05what I hope happened was that they had their throats cut,
42:08that they were strangled, that they died a quick death
42:11and their bodies were disposed of.
42:13I fear that they were simply thrown down the well and left to die.
42:21It seems horrific.
42:23But if we're looking at 17 people who knew each other,
42:27perhaps even mothers, fathers, sons and daughters,
42:31then what events could have led to this?
42:36When Jewish people first moved to Britain
42:39following the Norman conquest of 1066,
42:41many settling in the key cities of London, Norwich and York,
42:45they enjoyed the protection of the crown.
42:48But just a few generations later, the story was very different.
42:54In England, protection wavered
42:56after Richard the Lionheart's coronation in 1190,
42:59and right across Europe, anti-Semitic propaganda was growing.
43:04Jews were accused of spreading plague,
43:07poisoning the water in wells,
43:09and even of using the blood of Christians in their rituals.
43:16But were our people somehow caught up in this?
43:23Xanthe travels to Bevis Marks in London,
43:26the oldest surviving synagogue in the country,
43:29to see Jewish historian Miri Rubin.
43:40You're aware by now that the DNA has come back
43:43and it's indicating that we're looking at a Jewish population.
43:47What does that mean to you?
43:49The first reaction is just shock.
43:51It's just, you know, the mind boggles.
43:53You know, at least 17 people, so many children,
43:56so many really young children amongst them.
44:00Well, it's just a horrific thought that, you know, with all the research,
44:04these sort of events can just go unnoticed.
44:06There are new types of dangers that develop in the late 12th, 13th centuries,
44:10new nasty narratives.
44:12You might even say that as Europe becomes more Christian,
44:15there is a real deepening of the...
44:18..of the sort of the sense of Jewish evil.
44:21So it is, I'm afraid, a picture of worsening
44:24and ultimately the age of expulsions where England leaves in 1290,
44:28where the Jews are expelled back to where they came from,
44:31to northern France.
44:32Yeah. So is that the kind of pinnacle of the unrest, the expulsion?
44:36You might say so.
44:37It's the king brought them in and the king kicked them out sort of thing.
44:41But Miri doesn't think they could have been part
44:44of the recorded acts of violence against Jews,
44:47nor the organised expulsion of Jews from England and Wales of 1290.
44:51I see no reason that the bodies will not have been relinquished
44:54to the Jewish community to bury properly,
44:57nor, indeed, would I think that children would have been involved
45:00so conspicuously, nor bodies that seem unbroken, undisturbed,
45:05unmutilated, like the ones that we've found.
45:08That's the problem.
45:10She believes this points to another less well-known incident in the 1230s.
45:15Another flashpoint that occurred to me is the 1230s,
45:19the 1230s that saw, on a number of occasions,
45:23violence in the streets of Norwich against Jews
45:26and, indeed, and very important for this case,
45:29a burning of some Jewish houses by Norwich people,
45:33because that would then suggest that maybe they died in their sleep
45:37from the inhalation of smoke and thus they suffocated,
45:40because that would explain both the existence of the children
45:44and the fact that their bodies are not sort of mutilated
45:47in a way that you'd expect if it was just sort of real violence
45:50in the street and they were just felled.
45:55What's clear is that during this time,
45:57the Jews of Norwich could not rely on any protection from the Crown.
46:01It's evident that royal officials, the Sheriff and his bailiff,
46:05simply lost control of the city and, indeed, became a subject.
46:09The bailiff was actually beaten up by Norwich people.
46:12So that suggests to me a situation where this system of control
46:16and scrutiny and protection that was painstakingly laid down
46:19over the decades had actually been disrupted in those years
46:22and actually royal officials could not contain what was unfolding.
46:26How many Jewish people were actually in Norwich at this time?
46:29Maybe 150 to 200 or so.
46:3117 people, then, is actually quite a large proportion of this.
46:35You know, you think 17 within a community is not that many,
46:38but this is massive, isn't it?
46:40Really, really big, and the fact these are families and children,
46:43this is a very, very big deal.
46:47This puts a totally new complexion onto the facial reconstructions,
46:51now nearing completion.
46:53So this is our Jewish group from the well in Norwich
46:57and we've got adult male and young unidentified child in terms of sex.
47:03We don't know if it's a boy or a girl, five to seven years old.
47:10First, there is the adult male in his 40s.
47:15So the first thing that we'll look at in terms of characteristics
47:19are his ears, because we know that he's got a deer in his ears,
47:24in other words, he hasn't got any lobes.
47:26The ears just hit straight onto the side of the head.
47:30And the bones around the mastoid process
47:35suggest that he had quite prominent ears,
47:38both upper and lower prominence.
47:42Then there is the five- to seven-year-old child,
47:45who could be related to the man.
47:47And we've added the muscle structure over and above the skull
47:51and now we can look at some of the feature detail.
47:53Much more difficult with children
47:55because we don't have the strong features that we can take with adults.
48:00So most children tend to have similar, small, upturned noses
48:04and the adult nose shape won't develop until after the age of eight
48:09is when it starts to develop.
48:11And Caroline has discovered evidence
48:13which backs up the idea that they are family members.
48:16Now, interestingly, with this particular individual,
48:20he or she also had a deer in tears,
48:23which means that the child didn't have lobes,
48:26which is similar to the adult.
48:28The adult is showing that feature too.
48:30We know it's an hereditary feature,
48:32so if you have a deer in tears,
48:34then one of your parents will have a deer in tears as well.
48:37So the fact that they both have a deer in tears I think is significant.
48:42The final task will be to apply likely skin, hair and eye colour.
48:53Did our man and child die from smoke inhalation
48:56when their houses were set fire to?
48:59Did they die once in the well from crush asphyxia?
49:03Or is there still another scenario
49:05which could explain the lack of fatal trauma on the bones?
49:09Xanthe has come to Clifford's Tower in York
49:12to take part in an annual service
49:14commemorating a very different sequence of events
49:17which led to the tragic loss of many Jewish lives.
49:21In March 1190, about 150 Jews,
49:24men, women and children,
49:26sought protection in the royal castle here,
49:29now known as Clifford's Tower,
49:31where they could usually rely on royal protection.
49:34The sheriff of Yorkshire decided to order the ejection of the Jews from the castle
49:39and the families inside,
49:41deciding that the end had come,
49:44followed the tradition of heroic martyrdom,
49:48that they should take their own lives
49:50rather than die at the hands of the mob.
49:53The father of each household killed his own family
49:57and was then killed by the rabbi.
50:00The suicide method, taking a knife to their throats,
50:03may well not have left a mark on the bones
50:06and would also fit with the idea
50:08that the people in the well are family members.
50:11It's a tragic possibility.
50:13It really hits home that I've seen some people
50:16who may have lived in a very similar situation,
50:19may have died in a similar way,
50:21and it really humanises the whole story
50:24and tells me about what Norwich may have felt
50:27We've seen it in York.
50:29Was it the same in Norwich?
50:43The team has reached the end of this investigation.
50:46The first examination of the bones took place in the depths of winter.
50:51It's now spring, and after months of work,
50:54it's time for the story these bones have told
50:57to be relayed back to the local community.
51:06Sue, Caroline and Xanthi return to Norwich
51:09and the medieval Guildhall.
51:16Keen to hear their findings
51:18are those who originally excavated the site,
51:21experts who have assisted the investigation
51:24and members of the local community.
51:26I think a lot about it, actually.
51:28Yeah, it almost haunts me a bit
51:30because it was such an unusual thing for me
51:33and quite morbid in a way,
51:35but also, you know, I'd just like to know a bit more about them.
51:38To actually be able to put a face to one of these characters
51:41and actually bring the person to life,
51:43it'll be, I think, the most interesting for me.
51:46I should be, yeah, interested to find out
51:50what we've been able to tell about them,
51:52because they're a bit of a mystery.
51:56But how will the people of Norwich react
51:58to a story that brings back to life one of the city's darkest hours?
52:06What we have started to do
52:08by bringing the science into this investigation
52:11is to allow us to look at the story from a different perspective.
52:16Why were they in a well?
52:18Were they alive or were they dead when they were placed in the well?
52:23And how do they fit into the history of Norwich at the time as we know it?
52:30Sue details some of the major twists that the investigation took,
52:34starting with the idea of disease.
52:38So it's not leprosy, it's not TB,
52:41it's not something that leaves a skeletal lesion.
52:44But that doesn't rule out all of the enteric diseases.
52:47But there was the stumbling block of unchristian burial.
52:51The most important thing is, even though they died in vast numbers,
52:56they were still buried with the observance of Christian rites.
53:01And then the dramatic science that pushed the trail towards murder.
53:06So we need to talk about a real turning point,
53:10the point at which this investigation really did take
53:14a very, very different direction.
53:17We have to talk DNA.
53:19So we sent some bones off to Ian to have a look at the DNA.
53:24Out of the five of them where there was retrievable good information,
53:29what we have is a situation where the mitochondrial DNA,
53:33which is the DNA that's transferred down through a maternal line,
53:37effectively matches.
53:39So we have family members.
53:42That was really important.
53:44But what was even more important was that the DNA told us
53:49that the most likely group to which these individuals belong
53:54are, in fact, Jewish.
53:57Wow.
54:00Wow.
54:05Wow. I'm actually quite shocked about that.
54:08Well, you weren't the only one.
54:10If it's not a natural death,
54:13then I have to go back to where I was in Kosovo and to say,
54:18are we looking at a non-natural death?
54:22Are we looking at a murder scenario?
54:26Everyone is shocked at the idea that the people of Norwich
54:30once participated in the Europe-wide Jewish persecution.
54:36Usually this is the nice bit for everybody, where I reveal a face,
54:40but it doesn't feel that way today.
54:42So let me first show you our male adult face.
54:52I think he's got a great face.
54:54It's a lovely face.
54:57Caroline's second reconstruction is even more emotive.
55:01One of the 11 children from the well.
55:03I think our child is just beautiful as well.
55:06It's perfect. He or she.
55:09They're just perfect.
55:14I think they're very...
55:17They're all a bit emotive now, actually.
55:25We know what we might be looking at here is father and son
55:29or father and daughter or uncle and niece or uncle and nephew, etc.
55:33But a familial bond of some sort.
55:36And those might still be skeletons, but these are now people.
55:46It's a shocking revelation for everyone involved.
55:50It's very sad for Norwich.
55:52It changes the story of what we know about this community.
55:56We don't know everything about this community,
55:58but what we thought we knew is changed by this.
56:01No, it was a big surprise, really.
56:04It's not what I was expecting at all.
56:07I knew that we were going to learn something
56:09and I really didn't think it was going to go in that direction.
56:12We had an idea that they died horribly,
56:15but the thought that it could be self-inflicted
56:18possibly is rather upsetting.
56:30From what started out as a mysterious jumble of unidentified remains,
56:35we can now say that at least five of the people in the well were Jewish.
56:40We know that the children could likely have been
56:43from the same extended family or community.
56:46And, tragically, that the trail points to them
56:49having possibly been murdered or pushed into suicide.
56:54This story throws new light on the horrific spate of persecution
56:58that ran through medieval England,
57:00which saw Jews used for their money,
57:02forced to remain social outcasts
57:04and ultimately left without protection from the angry mob.
57:09The bones will now be handed back, perhaps for eventual reburial.
57:13Do you know, today was hard.
57:15I don't think I quite expected it to be as hard as it was.
57:20And it's how I feel every single time I have to talk to families today
57:27when we bring the news.
57:29And in forensic anthropology, the news that we bring is always bad news.
57:33It's the news that says,
57:35I'm sorry, your son's dead, your mother's dead,
57:38and you have to deal with the emotion.
57:41We were bringing the information to a community
57:44that was going to be seriously affected
57:47and seriously challenged by what we were going to say.
57:51But I knew that what we weren't doing was bringing closure.
57:55We were bringing almost the opposite.
57:58We were opening wounds that people were going to have to address.
58:03Next time, the remains of a woman and three babies
58:06found in a single grave.
58:08Dating from Romano-British times, when medicine could be brutal.
58:12That is for perforating the skull.
58:14And child care was a matter of life and death.
58:17This is very easy to kill a baby and leave no marks.
58:25And there's another history cold case here on BBC HD
58:28on Thursday night at nine.
58:30Next this evening, it's The Apprentice.