Beneath Gloucester's Former Debenhams, 317 Skeletons Are Rewriting What We Know About The City

Despite spending most of your life digging around in the dust and dirt, archaeology can be a fascinating career. Each hard-won discovery brings humanity closer to understanding the life and times of communities that are millennia old. Just recently, in fact, an excavation of archaeologists working at the site of an abandoned UK department store being remodeled into a university campus unearthed hundreds of ancient skeletons, shedding more light on the area’s rich and storied history. Image credits: Kateryna Hliznitsova / Unsplash (not the actual photo) Hundreds of ancient skeletons have been discovered at the site of an abandoned Debenhams department store in the United Kingdom. The remnants of 317 people from both medieval and post-medieval burial grounds were unearthed by archaeologists from Cotswold Archaeology in Kings Square, Gloucester. The site was being redeveloped into the University of Gloucester’s City Campus. Due to the fact that artifacts have continued to show up in this area, the university commissioned Cotswold Archaeology to investigate the site. “Every time we work in Gloucester, we make new discoveries,” Cliff Bateman, Cotswold Archaeology Senior Project Officer, said in a press release. “It’s a massively important place.” Image credits: Tom Fisk / Pexels (not the actual photo) Discovered amongst the skeletons were other artifacts, including what’s thought to be a tobacco pipe, fragments of a wine bottle, and several earlier relics from the Roman period. This makes sense, considering what is today King’s Square is considered to have once been the northeastern quadrant of an ancient Roman town. Since the project began back in 2023, archaeologists have unearthed several remnants of the Roman period, including pottery, 83 brick burial vaults, the foundations of a wall from a townhouse, and what seems to be a road dating back to the 2nd century A.D. Other recent discoveries include a crypt from St. Aldate’s Church, built in 1750 to replace a church of the same name, the origins of which can be traced back to before the Norman Conquest of 1066. Image credits: Yunus Tuğ / Unsplash (not the actual photo) That church was so damaged from the English Civil War that it was eventually torn down in the mid-1700s. The later St. Aldate’s stood until 1960 but has since been demolished. Evidence of its medieval predecessor has not yet been revealed but is thought to be in the area. Burials linked to the vanished medieval church were also found when the site was first being restructured. Image credits: Magda Ehlers / Pexels (not the actual photo) Bateman added that he is pretty much positive “there will be Roman buildings in situ” beneath the post-medieval necropolis. This isn’t all that surprising to archaeologists, who first started uncovering mosaics and ruins of Roman buildings in the basement of the derelict department store. Image credits: annawaldl / Pixabay (not the actual photo) Initial studies on the teeth of the skeletons have found that the folks they belonged to probably consumed a high-sugar diet. While not much more is known about the remains (other than around half of them were not in burial vaults like some of the other skeletons found nearby) Gloucester is seemingly a place where fragments of the ancient past are often just inches beneath your feet. While the skeletons themselves won’t be on display at the university, the Roman, medieval, and post-medieval items recovered at the site will ultimately have their own shrine. “These objects have been retained on site, following archaeological recording, and will be available for students, staff and visitors to City Campus to appreciate once the site is fully operational,” said Steve Sheldon, Acting Principal Manager of Cotswold Archaeology.