Miklós Kásler - Zoltán Szentirmay (szerk.): Identifying the Árpád Dynasty Skeletons Interred in the Matthias Church. Applying data from historical, archaeological, anthropological, radiological, morphological, radiocarbon dating and genetic research (Budapest, 2021)

CHAPTER TEN – Unique identification of the skeletons

3. According

to the polarization and two-photon microscopic surveys, the bone structure of skeleton II/52_3 had already sustained severe damage, the DNA was greatly fragmented and very few intact target sequences could be found in it. In the experience of the Göttingen

laboratory, during the amplification of such degraded DNA samples, PCR artifacts such as stutters start appearing more and more!

4. A-STR

analyses were carried out via PCR and NGS methods in Budapest and Göttingen.

The

A-STR surveys were conducted at the same time in the Budapest-1 and Göttingen

laboratories,

while the NGS data were obtained in the Budapest-2 laboratory. The A-STR data from these laboratories were compiled together, and a marker set with consensus alleles was created (Table 15). Using PCR investigation, 5 marker differences out of 20 could be detected between the bone samples of Béla

III and skeleton II/52_3, which ruled out a father-son relationship.

5. The

DNA sequencing analysis described in Point 5 conducted in the chromosome regions of five different markers showed that one of the markers shown to be different via PCR (D2S441) is indeed different in Béla

III

than in skeleton II/52_3, but a further 4 markers in the two skeletons are identical to each other. Out of 20 A-STR markers, 19 being identical suggests a close family relationship between the two skeletons.

6. Through

NGS analysis, we detected microvariant allele variations that were present in person 11/52 and King Béla III

as well, which only occur, if the two persons are closely related.

7. All

of the known anthropological, archaeological, radiocarbon dating and genetic data together point to person II/52_3 being Béla

II. To confirm this, we compared the genetic data of Béla III

with the rest of the skeletons in Table 21.

202