Scientists are 99.999 percent sure, in their most conservative estimate, that remains found in 2012 really do belong to King Richard III. These results, published Tuesday in Nature Communications, put a 529-year-old cold case to rest – all thanks to some intense genetic detective work.
The British royal died in battle in 1485. But while he would be immortalized in his namesake Shakespeare play, King Richard III was buried without fanfare. The church that marked his grave had long since been demolished when researchers went looking for it in 2012, and pinpointing its former location took some investigating. But when they finally tracked down Greyfriars Church, its foundation – and by extension, the body of a king – turned out to be under a modern-day parking lot.
Richard III’s skeleton was exhumed soon after and tentatively identified based on its age, battle wounds and signs of scoliosis – from which the king is believed to have suffered, based on historical descriptions.
King and her colleagues tracked down living relatives of the king and analyzed their genetic makeups, checking up and down the lines of inheritance to see whether the centuries-old skeleton fit into the family tree.
For the most part, the genetic connections were as expected. King and her colleagues did find one break in the chain, but this isn’t surprising: In that many generations, the likelihood of a “false-paternity event” – that is, a child fathered by someone other than the man believed to be the father -- is quite high. They can’t be sure at what point in the royal lineage this infidelity took place.
In addition to confirming the king’s identity, the researchers have given the world its first real look at the royal’s features.
The earliest portraits of Richard III were painted decades after his death, leaving his true appearance mysterious – until now. We now know that he was almost certainly blue-eyed and that he probably had blond hair as a child (though it may have darkened later).
