October 29, 2020

2- The Identification of Richard III

5 minutes

It’s genetics time! Back in 2012, a skeleton was unearthed in a car park in Leicester, which was later positively identified as Richard III of England. But how? Join us as we delve into how genetics cracked a 500 year old case wide open...

Sources for this episode:

King, T. E., Fortes, G. G., Balaresque, P. Thomas, M. G., Balding, D., Delser, P. M., Neumann, R., Parson, W., Knapp, M., Walsh, S., Tonasso, L., Holt, J., Kayser, M., Appleby, J., Forster, P., Ekserdjian, D., Hofreiter, M., and Schürer, K. (2014), Identification of the remains of King Richard III. Nature Communications 5:5631.

Shakespeare, W., Richard The Third (play), Act 1, Scene 3.

Author unknown, BBC news (2015), Richard III: Leicester Cathedral reburial service for king (online) [Accessed 29/10/2020].

Author unknown, BBC (2018), 'The discovery of Richard III's skeleton changed my life' (online) [Accessed 29/10/2020].

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