Medieval History
A team of researchers from Poland and the Netherlands have developed a system that is able to answer what the hair and eye colour is from individuals who lived over 800 years ago.
The HIrisPlex DNA analysis system was recently recreated for modern forensic research, but the researchers have now shown that this system is sufficiently robust to successfully work on older and more degraded samples from human remains such as teeth and bones. The system looks at 24 DNA polymorphisms (naturally occurring variations) which can be used to predict eye and hair colour.
In their article, ?Bona fide colour: DNA prediction of human eye and hair colour from ancient and contemporary skeletal remains?, the researchers examined the remains of Polish General Wladyslaw Sikorski (1881 to 1943) confirming his blue eyes and blond hair.
Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net
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Medieval History
New DNA test can determine eye and hair colour from people who lived in the Middle Ages
A team of researchers from Poland and the Netherlands have developed a system that is able to answer what the hair and eye colour is from individuals who lived over 800 years ago.
The HIrisPlex DNA analysis system was recently recreated for modern forensic research, but the researchers have now shown that this system is sufficiently robust to successfully work on older and more degraded samples from human remains such as teeth and bones. The system looks at 24 DNA polymorphisms (naturally occurring variations) which can be used to predict eye and hair colour.
In their article, ?Bona fide colour: DNA prediction of human eye and hair colour from ancient and contemporary skeletal remains?, the researchers examined the remains of Polish General Wladyslaw Sikorski (1881 to 1943) confirming his blue eyes and blond hair.
Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net
- Early Humans May Have Been Much Smarter Than We Thought
Rocks carved into ancient stone arrowheads or into lethal tools for hurling spears suggest humans innovated relatively advanced weapons much earlier than thought, researchers in South Africa say. The researchers' finds, partially exposed by a coastal...
- Researchers ?closer Than Ever? To Cracking 5000 Year Old Writings
New technology has allowed researchers to come closer than ever to cracking the world?s oldest undeciphered writing system. Researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of Southampton have developed a Reflectance Transformation Imaging...
- Save The Date Notice For A Wessex Centre For History And Archaeology Conference
Saturday 27 September 2014, 9.30-5.30. University of Winchester, King Alfred Campus Lives and Landscapes in Early Medieval Wessex: A Conference in Honour of Professor Barbara Yorke, Professor Emerita of Early Medieval History, University of Winchester Speakers...
- Greetings From Rare Book School In Charlottesville, Virginia.
This summer Rare Book School is excited to offer four courses designed specifically to advance the research of scholars in medieval and renaissance studies. Introduction to Paleography, 800?1500 introduces students to the book-based scripts...
- Advent Blue
This is a glorious little piece of late medieval English embroidery in the V and A. It formed part of an altar frontal, of unknown provenance, given by Henry Smyth and his wife and their son Thomas Smythe and his wife. It dates from the final quarter...