William Adams (Japanese name: Anshin Miura) is a British navigator who drifted to Japan on the De Liefde in 1600.After being heavily used by Ieyasu Tokugawa as a diplomatic adviser, he lived as a hatamoto. "Miura" comes from the name of the territory given to him (now Yokosuka City), and "Adamsuka" means a pilot. In 1620, he died in what is now Hirado City, Nagasaki Prefecture, and the legendary Miura Anshin Tomb (reburial tomb), which is said to have buried the corpse, remains in the city.

　A portion of the remains was excavated in 1931 and then backfilled. A re-excavation was carried out in 2017, and the human bones (skull, mandible, femur, and part of the tibia), which are believed to belong to the needles in the pottery jar, were taken up.The research group conducted a scientific analysis to gain insight into "what kind of history the human skeleton had".

　The preservation state of human bones was extremely poor, and it was difficult to identify the human bones individually even with the latest DNA analysis using the next-generation sequencer.However, although the possibility of another person cannot be completely denied, as a result of considering from a multifaceted perspective including burial status, dating, stable isotope analysis, etc., the origin of human bones, the time of death, the dietary habits before life, etc. Findings were obtained, and it was concluded that these human bones are highly probable to belong to Miura Anshin.

　This result shows that even poorly preserved human bones can be individually identified by making full use of various scientific analyses.In the future, it is expected to contribute not only to forensic medicine but also to the promotion of research in other related fields.

Paper information:[Scientific Reports] A biomolecular anthropological investigation of William Adams, the first SAMURAI from England