A recently televised documentary in Spain rekindles competing versions of the famed explorer's origins, but the scientific community is viewing it with caution.

A decades-long investigation led by forensics scientist José Antonio Lorente from the University of Granada in Spain has now come out in support of claims that Columbus may not be of Italian heritage after all, but was actually born somewhere in Spain to parents of Jewish ancestry.

A new DNA study on the 500-year-old remains of Christopher Columbus has found that the controversial explorer was actually a Sephardic Jew from western Europe.