Lots of the digging done by scientists researching the past happens AFTER artifacts are in hand. An example is the recent probe into the hair of Ludwig Van Beethoven. It's not like he's making any new hair these days, but new research techniques allowed further analysis of hair samples the great composer left behind when he died nearly 200 years ago. And it turns out, Beethoven had a family secret.
Comparisons with modern descendants indicate somebody might have strayed outside a marriage a few generations before he was born. This and more emerged in the DNA testing. The latest Underground History takes up the subject.
Host Chelsea Rose of the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology, talks to population geneticist Paul Maier at Gene by Gene and Family Tree DNA to get the scoop. Dr. Maier explains how so much information can be gleaned from a few locks of hair.