Department of Sociology
York Minster
Since the seventh century the site of the Minster has housed various versions of Christian church buildings. Due to its sheer age matters of death, dying and disposal are contained within, under and around this ancient religious structure.
Notably in 2012 the York Archaeological Trust conducted a dig in the Minster Undercroft and found a previously unknown settlement dating back more than one thousand years. A pair of mid-eleventh century human feet were found that were part of a body destroyed by the laying of foundations of the medieval minster in 1220AD. These buried feet cut into disturbed remains of earlier burials suggesting a cemetery and that the site had been a continuous and extensive burial ground for generations regardless of being Anglo-Saxon or Viking.