Jo Appleby

Identification of the remains of King Richard III

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.

‘The king in the car park’: new light on the death and burial of Richard III in the Grey Friars church, Leicester, in 1485

Archaeologists today do not as a rule seek to excavate the remains of famous people and historical events, but the results of the project reported in this article provide an important exception. Excavations on the site of the Grey Friars friary in Leicester, demolished at the Reformation and subsequently built over, revealed the remains of the friary church with a grave in a high status position beneath the choir. The authors set out the argument that this grave can be associated with historical records indicating that Richard III was buried in this friary after his death at the Battle of Bosworth. Details of the treatment of the corpse and the injuries that it had sustained support their case that this should be identified as the burial of the last Plantagenet king. This paper presents the archaeological and the basic skeletal evidence: the results of the genetic analysis and full osteoarchaeological analysis will be published elsewhere.

Perimortem trauma in King Richard III: a skeletal analysis

BACKGROUND Richard III was the last king of England to die in battle, but how he died is unknown. On Sept 4, 2012, a skeleton was excavated in Leicester that was identified as Richard. We investigated the trauma to the skeleton with modern forensic techniques, such as conventional CT and micro-CT scanning, to characterise the injuries and establish the probable cause of death. METHODS We assessed age and sex through direct analysis of the skeleton and from CT images. All bones were examined under direct light and multi-spectral illumination. We then scanned the skeleton with whole-body post-mortem CT. We subsequently examined bones with identified injuries with micro-CT. We deemed that trauma was perimortem when we recorded no evidence of healing and when breakage characteristics were typical of fresh bone. We used previous data to identify the weapons responsible for the recorded injuries. FINDINGS The skeleton was that of an adult man with a gracile build and severe scoliosis of the thoracic spine. Standard anthropological age estimation techniques based on dry bone analysis gave an age range between 20s and 30s. Standard post-mortem CT methods were used to assess rib end morphology, auricular surfaces, pubic symphyseal face, and cranial sutures, to produce a multifactorial narrower age range estimation of 30-34 years. We identified nine perimortem injuries to the skull and two to the postcranial skeleton. We identified no healed injuries. The injuries were consistent with those created by weapons from the later medieval period. We could not identify the specific order of the injuries, because they were all distinct, with no overlapping wounds. Three of the injuries-two to the inferior cranium and one to the pelvis-could have been fatal. INTERPRETATION The wounds to the skull suggest that Richard was not wearing a helmet, although the absence of defensive wounds on his arms and hands suggests he was still otherwise armoured. Therefore, the potentially fatal pelvis injury was probably received post mortem, meaning that the most likely injuries to have caused his death are the two to the inferior cranium. FUNDING The University of Leicester.

Increasing confidence in paleopathological diagnosis - Application of the Istanbul terminological framework

Paleopathological reporting is hampered by a lack of precision in the confidence levels of diagnosis. In this article, we recommend the application of a slightly modified system of nomenclature ratified by the UN and widely used in forensic medicine for the identification of torture. The application of this terminological framework within paleopathology would encourage consistency between practitioners and enhance the reliability of comparisons between cases.

The scoliosis of Richard III, last Plantagenet King of England: diagnosis and clinical significance

Richard III was king of England from 1483 to 1485, after declaring his nephew, Edward V, illegitimate. On Aug 20, 1485, Richard was killed in battle with the rebel Lancastrian claimant Henry Tudor at Bosworth. His body was carried back to Leicester and buried in the Greyfriars Minor Friary, where it remained until its excavation in 2012, when it was seen to have a severe scoliosis. Famously, Shakespeare described Richard III as “hunchbacked” in his eponymous play of 1593. There has been considerable disagreement whether this “hunchback” was real or an invention of his enemies after death, with political motivations. However, the chronicler John Rous wrote around 1490 that Richard “was small of stature, with a short face and unequal shoulders, the right higher and the left lower.” This description is compatible with the presence of a rightsided scoliosis. We analysed the skeleton macroscopically for evidence of spinal curvature and related lesions. From CT 3D reconstructions of each bone, we created polymer replicas and built a model of the spine to recreate its alignment in life (fi gure, appendix). The apex of the right-sided thoracic curve noted at excavation was at vertebrae T8–T9. The Cobb angle, determined from vertical excavation photos, was 75° from the upper border of T6 to the lower border of T11. Since this was measured supine, whereas clinical angles are taken standing, we estimate the Cobb angle to have been in the range 70–90° during life. The curve was well balanced, with cervical and lumbar spines reasonably well aligned (King Moe type 3). Abnormalities of individual vertebrae (eg, wedging of vertebral end plates, lateral angulation of spinous processes, asymmetry of facet joints) were restricted to the thoracic region (appendix). The foramen magnum was normal in size and shape. The 3D reconstruction closely matches the 2D images recorded at excavation, and shows the spiral nature of the scoliosis (appendix, video). Determining the cause of Richard’s scoliosis allows us to estimate the age at which it developed, and how it may have aff ected him. Since the spinal ligaments are some of the last to decompose after death, and in this case had partly ossifi ed, the position of the vertebrae should show only minimum change from the time of burial, having been surrounded by soil. Such small change is supported by the similarity to the reconstructed model, which relied on joint morphology to determine each joint position. The absence of structural spinal abnormalities, such as hemivertebrae and unilateral bars, makes congenital scoliosis improbable. Neuromuscular causes, such as cerebral palsy, are unlikely because of the normal structure, muscle markings, and cortical thickness of the legs and hips, compatible with a normal weight-bearing gait. Skeletal changes associated with syndromes such as Marfan’s (eg, high arched palate and tall stature) were not present, and a normal foramen magnum makes a Chiari malformation unlikely. The subtle nature of the changes in vertebral anatomy suggest onset in the last few years of growth, which is compatible with adolescent onset idiopathic scoliosis, probably starting after 10 years of age. The physical disfi gurement from Richard’s scoliosis was probably slight since he had a well balanced curve. His trunk would have been short relative to the length of his limbs, and his right shoulder a little higher than the left. However, a good tailor and custom-made armour could have minimised the visual impact of this. A curve of 70–90° would not have caused impaired exercise tolerance from reduced lung capacity, and we identifi ed no evidence that Richard would have walked with an overt limp, because the leg bones are symmetric and well formed.

The intestinal parasites of King Richard III

The research was funded by the University of Leicester, Richard III Society, Leicester City Council, Leicester Shire Promotions, and Leicester Adult Schools.

Temporality and the Transition to Cremation in the Late Third Millennium to Mid Second Millennium bc in Britain

Time and temporality have been at the centre of a number of accounts of burial practices in the Bronze Age of Britain in the last twenty years. Up to now, however, the temporality of practice has been taken as an indication of past understandings of time and/or the ancestors. In this article I wish to argue that the temporality of mortuary practices was not merely reflective of understandings of time, but in fact was constitutive of them, and that through the changing temporality of mortuary practices, peoples engagement with monuments themselves was changed. These changing temporalities were driven by the transition from inhumation to cremation as the dominant mode of disposal of the dead. By invoking chaines operatoires for each mode, I will demonstrate the underlying similarities and differences of the two rites, showing how cremation led to a fundamental change in the temporality of mortuary behaviour, and as such created new understandings of funerary monuments and place .

Sexual dimorphism of the pelvic girdle from 3D images of a living Spanish sample from Castilla-La Mancha.

The aim of our study is to provide data regarding the morphology of the pelvic girdle from a living Spanish sample. The material used comprises radiographic images (CT scans) from 74 adult individuals (39 ♂ and 35 ♀) in DICOM format. The variables recorded were the bi-iliac width and the antero-posterior and transverse diameters of the three anatomical planes of the birth canal, with the exception of the transverse diameter of the outlet. Indices of the inlet and mid-plane were also calculated. Statistical analysis of the data (Students t-test and principal component analysis) revealed that the variables which display sexual differences are the transverse diameter of the inlet, the antero-posterior and transverse diameters of the mid-plane and the mid-plane index. In particular, Spanish women have significantly higher values in the transverse diameter of the inlet and the antero-posterior and transverse diameter of the mid-plane than men; and Spanish men have significantly higher values in the mid-plane index than women. The results of this study are in accordance with those obtained in previous studies based on dry bone, which suggest considerable populational variability in pelvic and birth canal geometry. This kind of CT-based study of living populations may significantly enhance our understanding of population variation of pelvic morphology. This information can be useful to better understand the birth mechanism in Homo sapiens and the appearance of rotative birth in the Homo lineage through comparison with the other primates, living or fossil.

Ageing and the Body in Archaeology

This article was largely written whilst on a period of academic study leave granted by the University of Leicester.

Finding Alcatrazes and early Luso-African settlement on Santiago Island, Cape Verde

After the Portuguese discovered the Cape Verde Islands in AD 1456 they divided its main island, Santiago, into two governing captaincies. The founding settlement in the south-west, Cidade Velha, soon became the Islands’ capital and a thriving trade centre; in contrast, that in the east, Alcatrazes, only lasted as an official seat from 1484–1516 and is held to have ‘failed’ (see Richter 2015).