How DNA testing could reveal the eye and hair colour of our ancestors

Scientists carry out tests on mysterious woman buried with monks

Teeth and bones up to 800 years old tested to reveal eye colour

Polish war hero's body among the human remains analysed

DNA testing has been used to identify the eye and hair colour of human remains up to 800 years old.

The new genetic technique is expected to provide intriguing detail about what historical figures looked like.

It has already been shown to be a potentially valuable tool for police and forensics experts trying to identify modern remains but has now been shown to be effective for teeth and bones hundreds of years old.

Tests on the remains of Polish war hero General W¿adys¿aw Sikorski revealed he had blue eyes.

Among the remains tested was a tooth from a woman found, to the astonishment of archaeologists, alongside those of abbots in a monastery near Kraków in Poland.

Analysis of a sample taken from the woman, who was buried in in the crypt of the St. Peter and Paul Church in the Benedictine Abbey some time in the 12th to 14th centuries, revealed that she most likely had blue eyes and dark blonde hair.

Quite why she and another woman were buried with the monks, however, remains a mystery.

The results of analysis of 24 bone and tooth samples was said to show that the system offers a valuable new tool to archaeologists.

'Overall, we demonstrate that the HIrisPlex system is suitable, sufficiently sensitive and

robust to successfully predict eye and hair colour from ancient and contemporary skeletal

remains,' the research team concluded.

'Our findings, therefore, highlight the HIrisPlex system as a promising tool in future

routine forensic casework involving skeletal remains, including ancient DNA studies, for the

prediction of eye and hair colour of deceased individuals.'



Researchers were able to use the technique to confirm Polish World War Two hero General Władysław Sikorski had light blonde hair and blue eyes.

A skull from a woman found buried alongside monks in a crypt in Poland.

Contemporary accounts described him as having blonde hair and blue eyes but there are no colour photographs of him, while a colour portrait was painted after his death.

Sikorski was Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces and was Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile until he was killed in an airplane crash at Gibraltar in 1943.

After being exhumed in 1993 from a cemetery in Newark his remains were placed in athe crypt of the cathedral of the Royal Castle on Wawel Hill in Kraków.

However, in 2008 he was exhumed once again amid doubts the aircraft crash that killed him was an accident.

DNA testing confirmed the body in the crypt was his and researchers also took the opportunity to test for eye and hair colour using HIrisPlex.

The tests were 99 per cent certain that the General had blue eyes and 69.5 per cent certain that his hair was a light blonde.

Dr Wojciech Branicki, from the Institute of Forensic Research and Jagielonian University, Kraków, led the study and said: ‘This system can be used to solve historical controversies where colour photographs or other records are missing.

‘HIrisPlex was able to confirm that General Wladyslaw Sikorski, who died in a plane crash in 1943, had the blue eyes and blond hair present in portraits painted years after his death.

‘Some of our samples were from unknown inmates of a World War II prison.



'In these cases HIrisPlex helped to put physical features to the other DNA evidence.'

The study, carried out by researchers from Poland and the Netherlands, is published in the journal Investigative Genetics.