Christopher Columbus' remains found after 500 years as DNA analysis ends mystery

50 pointsposted 19 hours ago
by rmason
(the-express.com)

52 Comments

huhtenberg

17 hours ago

Here's a better and cleaner source of the same news -

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/11/dna-study-chri....

the-express.com page has 2 scroll-fulls of 3rd party garbage blocked by uBlock.

mikestew

17 hours ago

Boy howdy, you’re not kidding. Most of the page is huge swathes of white where the Pi-hole said, “nuh, uh”.

muststopmyths

14 hours ago

Also “confirmed” in original vs “found” in the express link

Waterluvian

13 hours ago

This is weird. This is twice now that a Guardian article will simply not scroll on my iPhone. I just cannot view the article. The page is just broken.

Vivtek

14 hours ago

"Today, traveling to the same Caribbean islands can be tricky, as anyone caught with contraband can face serious repercussions."

That is a very odd take on the Caribbean, and it's the third paragraph in the article. I've seen text spinners, but this feels AI-driven. Surely a human couldn't be this inane.

MichaelZuo

14 hours ago

LLMs have gotten good enough that it’s practically impossible to tell apart the difference in output between a real human mid-wit writer and LLM output, especially if it has gone through some editing.

So it’s probably best to err on the side of caution.

sml156

14 hours ago

Its a link to other articles on the same site, nothing nefarious

kelnos

13 hours ago

It just felt gratuitously weird. It was completely out of place given the purpose of the article. Either it served to support some beef the author has with that region, or just to find any excuse to link to another article on the site.

alephxyz

15 hours ago

>The conclusion followed comparisons of DNA samples from the tomb with others taken from one of Columbus’s brothers, Diego, and his son Fernando.

>The knottier question of the explorer’s precise origins will be revealed in Columbus DNA: His True Origin, a special TV programme shown on Saturday 12 October, the date when Spain celebrates its national day and commemorates Columbus’s arrival in the New World.

So if we've had DNA samples of his brother what was stopping us from finding out his "precise origins" earlier?

ywvcbk

14 hours ago

Seems like a nonsensical click-bait title.

They found his remains by confirming that they are indeed buried in the tomb with his name on it?

CSMastermind

13 hours ago

If you read the Gaurdian article that someone linked the confirmation was needed because his remains were transported under some secrecy multiple times.

Originally he was buried in Hispaniola where today is the city of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.

Motivated by fear of their destruction, they were moved to Cuba in 1795 under secrecy when France took over the island following several revolts.

When Spain lost the Spanish-American war and ceded Cuba in 1898 they were then transported to Seville.

Various conspiracy theories arose that the remains were never truly moved out of Santo Domingo, fueled by the fact that the remains in Seville were only partial and hand bones were found in a box in Santo Domingo with an inscription claiming they belonged to Columbus.

The researchers note that the hand bones could also be authentic with his remains split between Spain and the Dominican Republic.

ywvcbk

13 hours ago

Yes, I knew all that. "Found" is still the the wrong word to use.

user

13 hours ago

[deleted]

Qem

11 hours ago

Around 20 generations passed since Columbus set foot in Americas. Given we have his DNA, I wonder if it's still possible to pinpoint living descendants if any exists.

brindidrip

15 hours ago

The article spun off into an op-ed piece discrediting Columbus and his achievements. What a shame.

DonHopkins

14 hours ago

It's a shame what he did. Why do you seem to think it's such a shame that somebody wrote about those historical facts? You don't like history? What's a shame is that you want to rewrite it.

atlas_hugged

13 hours ago

He achieved the title of murderous inhumane trash. Indeed.

What else exactly did he achieve?

He didn’t get to the western hemisphere first, cuz duh, people already lived there, and if I recall correctly, a couple came before him. Eric the Red, and later his son Lief Erikson. There were the Polynesians which basically populated most of the major islands thousands of years before that. Traded with the natives in present day South America that arrived via the land bridge.

He raped, murdered, subjugated and stole from the natives. There are no achievements to celebrate to people with any humanity in them. Only bigots love him.

david38

11 hours ago

This is a deliberate misinterpretation of his accomplishments colored by his treatment of the people of Hispaniola.

What else did he achieve? You can’t be that stupid to ask that question in honesty.

The native tribes of the western hemisphere already lived there, but a place is “discovered” if another people become aware of it now, much like we “discover” new tribes in the Amazon with no previous contact with the Brazilian society at large. Likewise such tribes “discovered” Europeans when they first encountered them.

atlas_hugged

2 hours ago

“Deliberate misinterpretation”-? “Colored by his treatment”-? such an interesting choice of words. You’re very good at this euphemism dance.

Bravo.

So if I “discover” a house down the street I’ve never seen before, I “achieved” the title of “discoverer” as well! Ok so I guess he did “accomplish” something, I stand corrected.:

He “discovered” the place that was not called Hispaniola by any of the people that called it home.

He “discovered” the gold that those people were literally wearing at their home. I guess that means he can keep that too?

He “discovered” that he could force those at gun point to bring him all the gold they could find from their home.

He “discovered” that he could coerce the people into doing that by beheading the leaders of their home.

He “discovered” he and his crew could rape the women they found in their home.

Such an interesting choice of words you were taught to describe home invasion, rape, murder, robbery.

user

13 hours ago

[deleted]

ls612

17 hours ago

Surprising (but heartening) that in all that time the true remains weren't stolen and replaced with someone else's.

yieldcrv

15 hours ago

they really sat on this until his special US holiday weekend

funny

kykeonaut

15 hours ago

more than likely for the National Day of Spain which also falls on Oct 12th :)

yieldcrv

3 hours ago

glad to read he is celebrated somewhere more relevant to his travels

atlas_hugged

16 hours ago

Wonderful.

How long is the line to take turns pissing on his corpse? You know what, doesn’t matter. I’ll wait for however long it takes for my turn.

khaki54

16 hours ago

Gross. What's wrong with you?

krapp

16 hours ago

Christopher Columbus was one of the most evil men in human history, and indirectly responsible for the genocide, enslavement and colonization of an entire continent, to say nothing of his direct involvement in slavery and violence in the Caribbean. The latter to such an awful degree the Spanish had him arrested for his cruelty and extremism, which for the Spanish says a lot. And he wasn't even that great at navigation or sailing to boot.

If anyone's corpse deserves a pissing on, it would be his.

ywvcbk

14 hours ago

> was one of the most evil men

> If anyone's corpse deserves a pissing on, it would be his.

That's a strong statement. I mean he was obviously very cruel and greedy but I don't see how he was particularly exceptional in that way compared to thousands of other historical figures (we can call all of them one of the most evil men in history but that just makes the term meaningless..).

Even in the same ~50 year timeframe his direct "achievements" pale to compared to those of Cortés, Pizzaro.

kelnos

13 hours ago

Honestly, I think there's a lot of space in the "most evil men in history" bucket. Columbus can sit in it, right there along with Cortés, Pizarro, and those other thousands.

khaki54

16 hours ago

[flagged]

prisenco

15 hours ago

| Actual historical accounts tell something much closer to the the original story we knew as children

Anyone who thinks this is remotely true should read A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de las Casas.

MisterBastahrd

15 hours ago

Makes perfect sense to go to the people who practically worship the guy when you want to know factual details about his history.

krapp

15 hours ago

> Saying a bunch of deranged stuff with progressive buzzwords sprinkled in doesn't make it appropriate or correct.

I mean, accusing me of being Nazi adjacent because I'm opposed to slavery seems deranged, but you do you.

Dalewyn

14 hours ago

Judging the peoples of yesterdays by the (deranged?) standards of today is perhaps the most tragic achievement of our generation.

kelnos

13 hours ago

If you think it's "deranged" to condemn someone for enslaving native peoples and treating them brutally (torture, rape, murder), then I'm not sure what hope there is for you.

Even if we were to claim -- incorrectly, as a sibling poster has noted -- that his actions were accepted and normal for his day, we certainly don't have to celebrate him as some sort of hero today.

Dalewyn

13 hours ago

I do think it's deranged that some of our standards can include nonsense like pregnant males and "acceptable" discrimination like racial and sexual quotas.

I also think that it is ridiculous we apply the standards of today, deranged or otherwise, upon figures and events in history. Oftentimes also deleting what would be favourable even by today's standards to emphasize and exemplify the today-unfavourable.

I love learning about our past; who we are, where we came from, where we could have gone; and I find it tragic that we are corrupting and deleting it all just so we can be miserable and repeat the mistakes of our forefathers.

Columbus's achievement is historic, he is the second European after the Vikings to connect the Old World with the New and usher in a new age. He also has many less than great moments too. We should appreciate and celebrate all of it.

acdha

11 hours ago

> I also think that it is ridiculous we apply the standards of today, deranged or otherwise, upon figures and events in history.

Okay, how about the standards of his time, where he was so brutal a governor that the Spanish monarchs launched and investigation which eventually saw him lose his position as governor and be imprisoned?

https://jeffjacoby.com/27260/i-used-to-defend-columbus-as-ma...

Bartolomé de las Casas spent his career denouncing those evils, eventually getting another Spanish king to pass laws specifically banning the kind of things Colombus did. Even by the standards of his time, it was shocking.

archagon

12 hours ago

What is tragic is how Columbus’s atrocities are routinely swept under the rug for the sake of nationalistic hero worship. Forget historic contextualization: we never even covered the sickening extent of what he did to the natives in our high school curriculum. Any student of history should be infuriated by this.

(Also, if I recall correctly, his actions were considered brutal even in his own time.)

atlas_hugged

2 hours ago

Paragraph 1 - how is any of that, whatever those words were, relevant to the topic under discussion?

2 - deleting? Do you mean taking down a statue that hero worships awful people, and replacing that with factual information about those historically awful people in our curriculum?

3 - I also like learning about the past. Especially the awful parts so that I can more easily identify the people that try to justify and hero worship awful people, like some of the people in this comment section.

4 - I’m running out of quote marks on this one: “ “connecting” the “old world” with the “new” “

“Appreciate and celebrate all of it.” Wow.

Much euphemism.

Much klan.

Much stormfront.

Welcome to “hacker” “news”

krapp

14 hours ago

I'm judging Columbus by the standards of his own day. Spain ordered Columbus not to take slaves from the Caribbean - they wanted to colonize the land and convert the locals, but Columbus enslaved the population anyway, and shipped them to Spain by the boatload. And his governorship of the place was so brutal and cruel he was arrested and taken away in chains. Contemporary accounts by missionaries judge him the same way.

davoneus

13 hours ago

I wouldn't believe any missionaries statements of fact. After all, their history is as bad or worse than Columbus wrt the treatment of the native peoples in the Americas.

atlas_hugged

2 hours ago

Much thuggery. Much shifty. Much euphemism. Much denialism.

ywvcbk

14 hours ago

> deranged?

Can you elaborate what do you mean by that?

Dalewyn

13 hours ago

We are going out of our way to repaint history in the worst way possible using standards that should not be applied. No wonder people are so miserable and divided these days when we are led to be miserable in everything.

ywvcbk

5 hours ago

> using standards that should not be applied

There were plenty of people willing to apply those standards back in those days, even if they rarely had significant political influence outside of a handful of cases. e.g. Las Casas (almost a contemporary of Columbus) even managed to convince the Spanish state to pass legislation in 1542 that might be even considered progressive by the standards of the of the 1700s or even 1800s (of course it wasn’t necessarily very effective).

Why do you want to erase them from history?

> we are led to be miserable in everything.

Are we? How does saying that Columbus was greedy and cruel (even by contemporary standards) somehow makes us miserable? Seems entirely tangential..

atlas_hugged

2 hours ago

To the sane people, he means:

“repaint history” = correct historical inaccuracies in textbooks

“In the worst way possible” = as correctly as possible

“Using standards that should not be applied” = using the proper standards and I don’t like that for “reasons”

“No wonder people are so miserable and divided these days” = No wonder people don’t like people that spread the same misinformation as me at the moment

“When we are led to be miserable in everything” - “when led to learn from our prior mistakes and try to improve the future of ALL peoples”