Fig. 1. East Smithfield mass burial and sample locations, along with date ranges and final sample numbers used for the present study.

a, East Smithfield Black Death mass burial site from 1348–1349 (reproduced with permission of the Museum of London Archaeology, copyright MOLA). b, Site locations and archaeological site codes (in parentheses) for samples from London (inset, after ref. ⁴⁸, Museum of London Archaeology) and from across Denmark. c, Top, population size estimates for London for around six centuries (data are from refs. ^13,49,50) (Supplementary Table 1). Bottom, site locations with associated date ranges. Coloured boxes indicate date range for samples, numbers in boxes indicate samples meeting all criteria for inclusion in final analyses (see main text and Supplementary Information). Number in green star stems from East Smithfield and the dashed line refers to the time of the Black Death.