After the remains of British monarch Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of the House of York, were found buried under a parking lot in Leicester in 2012, scientists have been painstakingly extracting details from his bones. These details tell the story of his life, and how he developed a taste for opulence in later life.
Researchers from the British Geological Society have “used multi-isotope techniques to reconstruct the life history of Richard III”. In their paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, they detailed how they used isotopes – different forms of the same atoms – to describe how the long-dead king moved around England and his lifestyle.
While carbon dating is well known, oxygen and nitrogen isotopes tell scientists what people ate. They analysed “sections of two teeth which formed during Richard’s childhood and early adolescence, and from two bones: the femur (which averages long-term conditions), and the rib (which remodels faster and represents the last few years of life)”.
The scientists have concluded from his bones that he developed a taste for the finer things in life, most notably wine and rich foods.
The femur, which takes longer to develop new bone tissue in comparison with a rib, showed from its higher nitrogen isotope ratios that he ate more game birds and freshwater fish, whereas the bones’ high oxygen isotope ratios spoke of an affinity for wine later in life.
It would appear that becoming king wasn’t good for his health, even if he hadn’t died in the Battle of Bosworth Field – the last English king to die in battle.