MADRID, Spain | The DNA analysis of the remains of Christopher Columbus will be relaunched by a Spanish university, after years of interruption, in an attempt to unravel the mystery of the explorer’s origins, the expert responsible for the project announced on Wednesday.
Was Columbus Genoese as most historians admit? Catalan, Portuguese, Galician …? There are many hypotheses.
More than 500 years after his death in 1506, these analyzes could put an end to the controversies over the origin of the sailor who discovered America in 1492, thus changing the face of the world.
The results of this “pioneering investigation” are expected in “October”, announced Wednesday the professor of forensic medicine of the University of Granada José Antonio Lorente, during a press conference in this city of Andalusia (South).
Launched in 2003 by Dr. Lorente, who had the bones attributed to Columbus exhumed from Seville Cathedral, DNA analyzes had to be suspended in 2005, he explained.
Because, according to the expert, because of the techniques of the time, “we used a lot of bones”, which were “in a very great state of degradation” after the analysis, “to obtain very little information” .
It was therefore decided to “preserve them for the moment when we have better technology”, which is the case now, he added.
The DNA of these bones will be compared with those of other bones dating from the same period that may belong to the explorer’s family, according to certain hypotheses.
It will also be compared with DNA samples from living people with the same surname in the different regions that are the subject of hypotheses.
Preserved in a vault at the University of Granada, the bones attributed to the navigator, his son Hernando and his brother Diego will be analyzed in collaboration with the University of Florence in Italy and the University of North Texas in the United States. -United.
The results “could be completely conclusive”, but “it is not sure that we can obtain enough DNA from all the bones in sufficient quantity and quality to reach a conclusion”, warned Professor Lorente, however.
“It is a question of offering all the information so that the historians and the experts interpret it”, explained the doctor.
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