An updated picture of Ötzi, alongside the previous reconstruction. Image: © Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Bridge)
O is for Ötzi and the subject of today’s Geeking Science. One of the best aspects of science is revisiting old knowledge with new skills and techniques to get a better image.
Our first view of Ötzi was in 1991 when German hikers discovered him in the Italian Alps.
(Ötzi, while still frozen in the glacier, photographed by Helmut Simon upon the discovery of the body in September 1991 – Fair use,
Extraction from the melting glacier included clothing (made from leather and hide) and hunting tools (axe, flint knife, and longbow). (Bridge) And was done … poorly. Initially, the approach was to remove a cadaver of some poor mountaineer who had the bad luck to die in the past decade on the glacier. Ice axes and a pneumatic drill got the body out of the ice, breaking the longbow among other archeological nightmares. (Wikipedia)
The first change of status happened when Konrad Spindler dated the body based on the copper axe to be “at least four thousand years old” a couple weeks later. (Wikipedia)
Later carbon dating from tissue samples of the corpse and carbon-based items found with him place it at 5,000 years. Further studies give a 2 out of 3 chance of death between 3239 and 3105 BC. (That is a 134 year window.) (Wikipedia) Each dive into Ötzi’s body, with better techniques and tools, gives better information. From eyeballing a body by untrained hikers to carbon dating a 150 year window about five thousand years ago.
This is true about nearly every discovery associated with Ötzi. From white hairy hunter-gatherer man who fell into a glacier, to the present view of a balding man of agricultural descent (though presently a hunter), with tattooed dark skin (about the shade of the Mediterranean), who got ambushed, but escaped to run home until he died on his journey back.
In 2001, an “X-ray examination revealed an arrowhead lodged in his left shoulder, suggesting that he likely bled to death”. (StudyFinds 2023)
Fig 1. Overview on the Iceman’s Health Problems – unknown source for picture as the connecting website is gone
While it looks like Ötzi had a bad life, he died in his mid to late forties. By mid-forties most modern people, even without an active lifestyle such as hunting, have back pain, bad knees and hips, some stomach problems, a couple of cavities, and likely a head injury of some sort – from dodgeball as a kid. The healed rib fractures is interesting; he lived long enough to recover from broken ribs. I wondered who helped him.
In 2003, Nerlich et.al. took a scraping where previous examinations showed a possible deep stab wound. They weren’t sure if it was an injury from life or an insult to the body from being tossed around by a glacier and then being extracted from the glacier with ice axes and a drill. They rehydrated the tissue sample and the results show blood clotting (like a scab) progressed between three to eight days after the injury.
I wonder if a similar study has been done on the arrow head injury. We know there is a hole there, but how long was it there. These two injuries together paint quite a picture and very different from some hunter randomly falling to his death in a glacier five thousand years ago.
The writer in me want to know. Did he and a hunting partner get in a disagreement and Ötzi got stabbed in the hand and shot with an arrow while he escaped? Maybe a group of invaders had captured him and the arrow shot happened when he grabbed a moment to run away, after playing up his trick knee and bad back with the wily actions of an man who had aged long enough to need to live by his brains instead of just his brawn. Maybe he was the invader into other people’s territories who hunted him down for his trespass, an old man scent to test their security.
The more his body reveals to us, the more questions open up.
In 2009, a CAT scan combined with DNA analysis gave us his last meals included ibex game meat, goat domesticated meat, wheat (likely bread), roots, and fruits. He was found with provisions such as barley, einkorn wheat bran, and flax and poppy seeds. (Wikipedia)
In 2012, the first DNA genome pass was done. The DNA samples used were highly contaminated. From them, and a cultural bias toward white people in cold climates, drawings and presentations show Ötzi to be white skinned and hairy. The dark skin of the mummy corpse was attributed to the mummification process (never mind that most mummies studies are of Egyptians and … wait for it … people of non-“white” skin). (Hesman Saey)
Genes giving lighter skin tones didn’t drift in to humanity until nearly a thousand or two thousand years later. Humans started in Africa; and European-descent people tend to attribute light-skin happening MUCH MUCH later into the “distant” past than it did.
It happened “recently” on the genetic scale. Like the Egyptian Empire setting up along the Nile recent. Like after China had silk for over a thousand years already, recent. Like bricks and city states had existed for a millennium, recent.
Civilization, cities, textiles, writing, and history all pre-date “white” skin. Europe didn’t create the building blocks of humanity.
In 2015, using special photographic techniques, suspected tattoos, which had been hard to see against the mummified skin, revealed 61 tattoos. (Wikipedia)
In 2023, a new DNA study on Ötzi genome revealed much of what we know now. Part of it is better techniques for clearing up contamination. Part of it is a broader base of genetic knowlege indicating human migration. The Human Genome Project started in 1990 and, thanks to massive increases in computer calculating powers, completed in 2003 (with some outliers finally solved in 2022). (Wikipedia HGP) Techniques, knowledge, and calculation powers had improved by several multiples.
New information indicated his ancestors were likely Anatolian farmers (StudyFinds 2023) rather than hunter-gatherers. The dark skin of the mummy likely matched the skin color Ötzi had in life. Instead of flying grey hair in his forties, he was much more likely going bald. He had the DNA for type 2 diabetes, but his diet protected him from the genetic predisposition.
You got to Geek Science when it revisits and retests and reassesses what is known. The past lifting knowledge up, the present reviewing and improving, and the future built on a more accurate view of how the world works and where humanity came from.
Bibliography
Bridge, Mark. “Bald and dark like his mummy – DNA redraws picture of Iceman Ötzi.” History First. 2023 August 16. https://historyfirst.com/bald-and-dark-like-his-mummy-dna-redraws-picture-of-iceman-otzi/ last viewed 6/25/2025.
EurekaAlert! “Reanalysis of Iceman Otzi’s genome reveals dark skin, male pattern baldness and more.” 2023 August 16. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/998276 last viewed 6/25/2025.
Hesman Saey, Tina. “A new look at Ötzi the Iceman’s DNA reveals new ancestry and other surprises.” ScienceNews. 2023 August 16. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/new-otzi-iceman-dna-ancestry-genome last viewed 6/25/2025.
Metcalfe, Tom. “Ötzi the Iceman may have been bald and getting fat before his murder 5,300 years ago.” LiveScience. 2023 August 16. https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/otzi-the-iceman-may-have-been-bald-and-getting-fat-before-his-murder-5300-years-ago last viewed 6/25/2025.
Nerlich, Andreas G.; Bachmeier, Beatrice; Zink, Albert; Thalhammer, Stefan; Egarter-Vigl, Eduard. “Ötzi had a wound on his right hand.” The Lancet. Volume 262, Issue 9380. 2003 July 26. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(03)13992-X/fulltext last viewed 6/25/2025.
StudyFinds (2022). “Farming made our ancestors shorter, scientists discover.” 2022 April 9. https://studyfinds.org/farming-made-ancestors-shorter/ last viewed 6/25/2025.
StudyFinds (2023). “Ötzi the Iceman had dark skin and was bald – New study rewrites ancient history.” 2023 August 16. https://studyfinds.org/otzi-the-iceman-dark-skin-bald/ last viewed 6/25/2025.
Wikipedia (HGP). “Human Genome Project. undated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genome_Project last viewed 6/25/2025.
Wikipedia. “Ötzi.” undated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi last viewed 6/25/2025.
America and Japan have signed treaties (which hopefully future presidents will not renege on) to bring the rover to the moon. America is also developing a smaller, non-pressurized rover, similar to the beach buggy used in the past where spacesuits will be required to ride. The plan is to have all of these vehicles on-line for the later Artemis moon landings – around 2030.
