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After Richard's death, his enemies continued to attack his corpse, following the medieval tradition of humiliating those defeated in battle. A cut mark on the bottom of the right rib cage [7] suggests a postmortem stab with a knife or dagger, since he would have been wearing armor while he was alive, making it impossible to penetrate his chest. Another wound, in the right pelvis [8], suggests that a sword was thrust through the buttock penetrating the bone. This also would have been less likely if Richard had been alive and fully armored.
ANCIENT GENES
DNA can degrade over time, and cool and dry conditions are best for preservation; Leicester is wet and more temperate. So the team's geneticist focused on extracting genetic material from the teeth [9] since those are protected by enamel and are more likely to be preserved--important when a corpse has had 500 years to degrade. Some DNA was also taken from the right femur [10]. The team couldn't extract enough material to reconstruct Richard III's complete genome, but it was sufficient to match up with the DNA from his living descendants.
Sources: University of Leicester; University of Bradford; Royal Armouries at Leeds