Modern forensic techniques have put an end to a nearly 200-year-old conspiracy theory about a missing European prince, according to a new preprint.
In 1828, a “semi-wild” 16-year-old boy took the continent by storm when he appeared seemingly out of nowhere in the German city of Nuremberg. The disheveled youth carried two letters claiming he had been raised in a dark and cold dungeon and held captive by a “mysterious man.”
The “wild child” could not speak well, but he wrote his name as Kaspar Hauser. Rumors soon began to spread about where he came from.
Within a year, a popular hypothesis emerged. Some claimed that Hauser was the son of the recently deceased Grand Duke Carl, who had been Prince in Baden, a region in southern Germany, before the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.
According to tradition, the Grand Duke’s only surviving son died as an infant in 1812. However, when Hauser suddenly appeared, some began to speculate that the true heir to the House of Baden had been kidnapped and replaced by a dying baby “in order to bring a collateral line to the throne.”
Five years after Hauser’s mysterious appearance, the young man was stabbed to death, making his case even more intriguing and inspiring hundreds of articles, books, films and plays over the decades.
“It is considered one of the greatest historical mysteries of the 19th century,” says geneticist Turi King, who was one of the researchers who helped identify the skeleton of King Richard III in 2014, in a podcast.
A few years ago, King was asked to join an international team of scientists attempting to once and for all trace the hair and blood of Kaspar Hauser to the descendants of the House of Baden.
Previous attempts had produced conflicting results, and some scientists doubted that the blood stains taken from Hauser’s underwear on the day of the stabbing were genuine.
“After we die, our DNA breaks down into smaller and smaller fragments until there is nothing left to sequence,” explains King, who currently works at the University of Bath.
“DNA analysis methods available in the 1990s and early 2000s worked well with long DNA fragments, but did not produce consistent results when performing DNA analysis of Hauser’s various items.”
Using blood and hair samples from Hauser, King and her colleagues re-analyzed the young man’s mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited through the maternal line, using modern sequencing techniques.
“Kaspar Hauser’s DNA was identical in all hair samples and also matched the blood sample analysis from the 1990s,” explains King. This confirms the authenticity of the samples for the first time.
However, when researchers compared Hauser’s mtDNA with that of his alleged royal sisters and their descendants, there was no match.
The team concludes that Hauser’s genes were “clearly distinct from the mitochondrial line of the House of Baden.” This therefore rules out “a maternal relationship” and “the widely believed ‘prince theory.'”
“Sadly, we still can’t tell from our data who he was!” says King.
“Its mitochondrial DNA type is West Eurasian, but we cannot narrow it down to a geographic region.”
Since Hauser is not of royal blood, his origins remain a mystery. Where this lost boy really came from, we may never know.
The study was accepted for publication In iScience.
