Article content continued

Pathological DNA testing and carbon dating could take months, so it is too early for Abadie to know for sure when or how the bodies came to be buried underneath what is now the supermarket. “It could be the plague, it could be a famine, it can be many things at this stage – but there are no traces of trauma, so these aren’t deaths linked to an act of violence or war,” she said.

Bove, the historian, said Paris was struck by the plague, like much of the rest of Europe, during the great epidemic of the late 1340s. “We can’t give an absolute number, but it wouldn’t have been unlikely that the city lost a third of its population,” he said.

Pierre Vallat, deputy regional director for the INRAP, said the Hôpital de la Trinité was built outside city limits in the early 13th century and had at different times served as a shelter for the poor and for pilgrims, a place of religious teaching that put on biblical plays, an infectious disease center, and even a vocational school for children.

Vallat and Abadie said the discovery was the first medieval hospital setting to be excavated in Paris. Being able to study the remains of those who lived in the capital, not in distant provinces, would yield precious information on decisions made by those in power and how they affected the population.

“The history of this hospital really bears witness to the whole history of France,” Vallat said. “This is a total history, not just the history of the rich and famous. This isn’t Versailles.”