[Artemisia] Forensics and History...was " the princes in the tower discussion"

[Julia Jackman-Brink]

Georgia Foster wrote:

> Still, with only a small chip of material, they would be able to tell if 
> the skeletons were masculine or feminine.  Determining exactly WHO the 
> skeletons belonged to in life, now, that takes more of the softie 
> freshie bits.

Malkin, are you talking about specific DNA markers here? I know 
mitochondrial DNA is considered a "female marker". Although, with these 
two individuals, I doubt that the grave condition is very good. 
Considering in the 1630's, I doubt that the caretakers paid all that 
much attention to the bones much past gathering them up...lots of cross 
contamination, weather, potentially different species present (refering 
to the animal bones in the initial exhumation), man-o-man, even IF the 
Crown ever allowed future studies on the remains (again I don't support 
it, or reccomend it either) but the list of possible "forensic 
weirdness" is endless. I'm happy to leave these two individuals to the 
philosophers. There are far better studies going on with history and 
materials that CAN be substantiated.

The recent tomb restoration, exhumation and reburial of Cosimo I and 
Eleanora of Toledo and their children come to mind...one child of thiers 
had been traditionally listed as having been "violently murdered"...and 
was actually disproven by the new study (written period records and 
physical examination didn't substantiate the theory/storyline either), 
although they did find that individual had been very ill from a advanced 
bone wasting disease...which in a wealthy Renaissance Italian family, 
was definitely not as glamorous a passing as being listed as murdered. 
Makes you wonder doesn't it? If one can catch the actual program on TV, 
it's worth an hour of your time.

BTW- History Channel/Discovery International is an evil place if you 
feel the need to watch TV.

Juliana