article_snippet: London (CNN)Archaeologists have started excavating about 3,000 skeletons from the Bedlam burial ground in LondonLondon, used from 1569 to at least 1738.
article_snippet: Also known as Bethlem and the New Churchyard, more than 20,000 Londoners are believed to have been buried there.
article_snippet: the Bedlam burial ground in London was used by "a varied cross-section of society throughout the years since the burial ground was open," Nick Elsden, project manager from MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) told CNN.
article_snippet: And " Nick Elsden, project manager from MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) include those who could not afford a church burial or chose to perish there for religious or political reasons.
article_snippet: the Bedlam burial ground in London also contained the overflow of bodies when other cemeteries became full.
article_snippet: And what we want to be able to find out, from sampling the graves of that date, is why that is.
article_snippet: Londoners also assisted in the research by helping to search parish records to identify people who were buried in Bedlam.
article_snippet: The result is a database of more than 5,300 names and backgrounds of those buried at Bedlam, including political activists John Lilburne and Robert Lockyer -- part of a movement known as the Levellers --as well as Ambrose Nicholas, the Lord Mayor of London in 1575.
highlights_snippet: Digging has begun at the Bedlam burial ground in London .
  