Year in Review: Slain king’s bones dug up
Richard III’s skeleton reveals fatal wounds
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It was reported 528 years late, but the top news from 1485 seems to be that King Richard III may have been killed by a blade thrust upward into his skull or an axe-whack to the back of his head.
Researchers at the University of Leicester in England performed the autopsy on the slain king after an excavation in one of the city’s parking lots unearthed parts of Grey Friars Church, where he was buried. A genetic analysis confirmed the skeleton’s identity; a descendant on the king’s mother’s side possesses mitochondrial DNA matching the victim’s (SN: 3/9/13, p. 14).