I just watched a documentary about how King Richard III was found and I was wondering like how do they know that the skeleton is him?
It’s not like there are DNA samples to compare with.
Do they just rely on recorded documents or they use other kinds of methods?
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There are actually DNA samples to compare it to, we have DNA samples from relatives and are able to compare them to determine if there is a relation.
In the case of Richard the 3rd, you’re helped in that he was deformed with severe scoliosis (a), have genetic samples of relatives (b), and use the bones to estimate the age at death (C), and can use anthropological dating techniques to get a rough date of the death (d).
So in this case it’s a bit, how many people were buried in that friary, the same year, at the same age, who were related to royalty, had that same uncommon and extremely noticeable deformation…
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