Scientists reopen the Romanov mystery

An American team challenges DNA-based British research that bodies in a mass grave are the tsar's family, writes Roger Highfield

The fate of the Russian royal family was plunged into renewed controversy yesterday after scientists cast doubt over British DNA tests on bones recovered from a mass grave.

One of the most riveting detective stories of the last century supposedly ended in 1998, when the Russian government formally declared that the bones were those of the Romanovs, who were executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

But in a paper for the seventh International Ancient DNA Conference in Brisbane, a team from Stanford University near San Francisco will this week question tests by Home Office forensic scientists.

Link (Telegraph)

Posted by Dienekes at July 14, 2004 01:02 AM | PermaLink