DNA Confirms: Here Lieth Richard III, Under Yon Parking Lot
The king's genes also raise some royally embarrassing questions about the legitimacy of the Tudors who ended his reign.
Ancient bones discovered under a parking lot have been confirmed as those of the medieval king Richard III, through a DNA test that also raises questions about the legitimacy of Henry VIII and other famous English royals.
The team of genetics detectives reported Tuesday that DNA from the skeleton shows that the bones were Richard III's, with a probability of 99.9994 percent. This is the first genetic identification of a particular individual so long after death—527 years.
Archaeologists had peeled back a parking lot in 2012 to excavate the skeleton, which was among buried relics of the Greyfriars Friary in Leicester, England, long the reputed burial site of Richard III. (See "The Real Richard III.")
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