DNA confirms the existence of a living descendant of the indigenous chief Sitting Bull

DNA tests extracted from the scalp of the indigenous head of the Tatanka Iyotanka Sioux tribe, better known as Sitting Bull, showed that a living descendant who claimed to be his great-grandson indeed is, according to a study published this Wednesday in the magazine specialized Science Advances.

This is especially relevant because this is the first time that ancient DNA has been used to confirm a family relationship, according to Professor Eske Willerslev of the University of Cambridge (UK).

Confirmation of this family connection was made possible by using ancient DNA fragments, developed by a team of scientists led by Professor Willerslev and the Lundbeck Foundation Center for Geogenetics at the University of Copenhagen.

The team compared autosomal DNA – that is, non-gender specific – from the scalp of him, a man who claimed to be his descendant, and other members of the same Sioux tribe.

It took 14 years for scientists to find a way to extract usable DNA from Sitting Bull’s hair strand, about 5 to 6 centimeters long, and in an “extremely degraded” state, according to experts, after having been stored for more than a century at room temperature in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington before being returned to Lapointe in 2007.

The results showed that and, consequently, its closest living descendant.

After learning about the fruits of this study, Lapointe celebrated that their connection is finally recognized after over the years “Many people have tried to question” his lineage.

Additionally, as his closest living descendant, Lapointe hopes to re-bury the remains of the Native American leader where they are today.

According to Willerslev’s team, this new technique paves the way for similar DNA tests to check the relationship between many other long-dead historical figures and their possible living descendants.

This method could also be used to answer questions based on ancient human DNA that may previously have been considered too degraded to analyze, for example in forensic investigations.

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