A new genetic analysis by an international team of scientists has helped debunk a 200-year-old popular myth about Caspar Hauser, whose identity has become one of the most mysterious mysteries in German history. The study was published in a preliminary version in the journal iScience.
Caspar Hauser was a young man who suddenly appeared in Germany in 1828 and claimed to have grown up alone in a dungeon under the watchful eye of a mysterious man whom he had never seen. Unable to speak or write, he carried with him an anonymous letter in which he claimed to have been in complete isolation since childhood.
The story caught the public’s attention and made Hauser famous. This interest was further increased when King Ludwig I of Bavaria ordered him to be guarded around the clock, leading to speculation that his true identity might be that of a descendant of the House of Baden.
Royal conspiracy theory
The “prince theory” was that Hauser could have been the son of Grand Duke Charles; that he had been kidnapped and switched with a newborn, replaced by a terminally ill infant who died at only a few weeks old. This would make Hauser the rightful heir to the throne and change the lineage of the House of Baden.
Since then, historians have debated the mystery of Hauser’s identity, and when DNA fingerprinting technology emerged in the late 20th century, scientists also joined in solving the mystery.
However, multiple DNA analyses of hair and blood samples taken from her clothing over the past 30 years have yielded conflicting results. Due to doubts about the authenticity of the clothing or the possibility that it may have been contaminated during museum processing, a new, independent study was conducted in the 2000s.
Limitations in sampling and technology at the time meant that results were mixed. This study used new sampling using much newer methods.
New forensic methods
Now, a team of scientists, including Professor Turi King, director of the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, who is best known for his work on determining the identity of King Richard III, have used advances in forensic techniques that allow much smaller fragments of ancient DNA to be analysed.
The increased sensitivity of the methods meant they could analyse DNA from individual strands of hair, rather than pooling samples together to check for sequence matches, improving the accuracy of their results. They also compared their results with previous studies using blood samples from Hauser’s clothing, which is held at the Kaspar Hauser Museum.
The team analyzed traces of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) passed down through the maternal line and were able to conclusively prove that Hauser’s mtDNA type did not match the mtDNA type of members of the House of Baden.
Professor Turi King is an expert in ancient DNA analysis and genealogy. Professor King was previously at the University of Leicester, where he led the research team that identified the remains of King Richard III after they were found in a city car park. He is the co-presenter of the BBC Two series DNA Family Mysteries, which uses DNA technology to solve family mysteries relating to ancestry and missing relatives.
He said: “After death our DNA breaks down into shorter and shorter pieces until there is nothing left to sort into. DNA analysis methods available in the 1990s and early 2000s worked well with longer pieces of DNA but did not give consistent results when DNA analysis was done on different elements of Hauser’s body.
“It’s really exciting that we can finally use cutting-edge techniques to answer the question and rule out Prince’s theory.
“So I worked on two cases involving the potential identities of members of the royal family: Richard III and Caspar Hauser. In one case we proved that he was the king, and in the other case we proved that neither was a prince.
“Either way, these are mysteries that have been passed down through the ages, and I love that science can be used to answer them.”
However, Kaspar Hauser’s true identity still remains a mystery.
Professor King said: “Unfortunately our data still cannot tell us who he is! His mitochondrial DNA is of Western European type but we cannot determine his geographical origin.
“So it’s still a mystery in terms of its origin.”
Source: Port Altele
