In 2012, archaeologists dug out a skeleton from a car parking in Leicester city, London. This area was the presumed site of a church, which was the last-known resting place of King Richard III.
Archaeologists were certain that the bones belonged to a man who was in his 30s and carbon dating had revealed that the person could have died around 1485. Osteological studies had shown that the person suffered perimortem battle injuries. But all this was not enough to confirm the identity of the skeleton.
This is when professor Turi E. King and her team of geneticists stepped in. King is a reader in Genetics and Archaeology at the Department of Genetics and Genome Biology, University of Leicester.
Her team extracted DNA from the teeth and bone samples of the skeleton for further examination. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence from the skeleton showed a perfect match with one of the descendants of the King’s sister; thus putting to rest all speculations and proving that the skeleton was indeed King Richard’s.
“Now we have completed the whole genome sequencing and various analysis are being conducted to understand more about King Richard,” says the professor, who was in Chennai to attend the British Council’s Great Talk campaign, where she spoke about her findings.
According to a paper published in Nature Communications by Turi King and her team in 2014, King Richard had blue eyes and blond hair. “Since all portraits of King Richard III were done almost 30 years after his death, DNA study is the only way to confirm how he looked,” she adds.
Chance to study past illnesses
Turi King points out that this is a window of opportunity to study the common illnesses during his era and track how diseases like tuberculosis and plague evolved over time.
“You may remember the story of Ötzi the Iceman. He was discovered buried in the Alps mountains and his DNA study pointed out that he had Lyme disease about 5,000 years ago. Similarly, we can find if the King had any infections or any genetically transferred diseases,” she elucidates.
Genetics and genealogy can go hand in hand to help draw the complete family tree of the Kings of England. She says that once the project is completed, the whole genome of Richard III will be made available online and anyone can download and use it free of cost.
