Identification of the remains of King Richard III

Turi E. King (), Gloria Gonzalez Fortes, Patricia Balaresque, Mark G. Thomas, David Balding, Pierpaolo Maisano Delser, Rita Neumann, Walther Parson, Michael Knapp, Susan Walsh, Laure Tonasso, John Holt, Manfred Kayser, Jo Appleby, Peter Forster, David Ekserdjian, Michael Hofreiter and Kevin Schürer
Additional contact information
Turi E. King: University of Leicester
Gloria Gonzalez Fortes: University of York
Patricia Balaresque: UMR5288-CNRS/Université Paul Sabatier-Toulouse 3 Laboratoire Anthropologie Moléculaire et Imagerie de Synthèse Faculté de Médecine Purpam 37, allées Jules Guesde
Mark G. Thomas: Evolution and Environment, University College London
David Balding: Evolution and Environment, University College London
Pierpaolo Maisano Delser: University of Leicester
Rita Neumann: University of Leicester
Walther Parson: Institute of Legal Medicine, Innsbruck Medical University
Michael Knapp: School of Biological Sciences, Bangor University
Susan Walsh: Molecular Anthropology Laboratory, Yale University, Yale
Laure Tonasso: UMR5288-CNRS/Université Paul Sabatier-Toulouse 3 Laboratoire Anthropologie Moléculaire et Imagerie de Synthèse Faculté de Médecine Purpam 37, allées Jules Guesde
John Holt: Space Research Centre, University of Leicester
Manfred Kayser: Erasmus MC University Medical Centre Rotterdam
Jo Appleby: School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester
Peter Forster: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge
David Ekserdjian: University of Leicester
Michael Hofreiter: University of York
Kevin Schürer: Centre for English Local History, University of Leicester

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract In 2012, a skeleton was excavated at the presumed site of the Grey Friars friary in Leicester, the last-known resting place of King Richard III. Archaeological, osteological and radiocarbon dating data were consistent with these being his remains. Here we report DNA analyses of both the skeletal remains and living relatives of Richard III. We find a perfect mitochondrial DNA match between the sequence obtained from the remains and one living relative, and a single-base substitution when compared with a second relative. Y-chromosome haplotypes from male-line relatives and the remains do not match, which could be attributed to a false-paternity event occurring in any of the intervening generations. DNA-predicted hair and eye colour are consistent with Richard’s appearance in an early portrait. We calculate likelihood ratios for the non-genetic and genetic data separately, and combined, and conclude that the evidence for the remains being those of Richard III is overwhelming.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6631 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms6631

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6631

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().