Ötzi the Iceman Lives

Around 3300 BCE, a man in his mid-forties died high in the Ötztal Alps, on what is now the border between Austria and Italy. His body was swiftly covered by ice and stayed there for more than five thousand years. When hikers found him in 1991, he became the best-preserved natural human mummy ever discovered from prehistoric Europe, and he remains one of the richest sources of evidence about everyday life in the Copper Age. He is known as Ötzi, after the valley range where he was found, or simply as the Iceman.

Ötzi lived in a period when farming communities had been established across Europe for millennia, and the working of copper was beginning to spread. His world was one of small villages, herding, cereal cultivation, and travel across mountain passes. Genetic studies suggest his ancestry was largely that of early European farmers, and analysis of his teeth and bones points to a life spent in the valleys south of where he died, though the details of his movements are still debated.

What makes Ötzi so valuable is the completeness of his kit. He carried a copper-headed axe, a flint knife, a bow that was unfinished, a quiver with arrows, and a pouch of tools. His clothing combined leather, fur, and woven grass, including a coat, leggings, a cap, and shoes stuffed with grass for insulation. He also carried pieces of birch fungus, which may have been used as a kind of medicine. His skin bore dozens of tattoos, mostly simple lines and crosses, and some researchers have suggested they were linked to treating joint pain, though that remains a hypothesis.

His death was long assumed to be from exposure, but in 2001 an X-ray revealed a flint arrowhead lodged near his left shoulder. Scientists concluded that he bled to death from an arrow wound, and he also had a head injury. Why he was attacked is unknown. Some have suggested a conflict or a raid, while others note that the evidence cannot establish a motive. His last meal, which included meat and grain, has been reconstructed from his stomach contents.

Ötzi's discovery transformed the study of prehistory and showed how ice can preserve far more than bones. Today his body is kept in a cold, humid chamber at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy, where he draws many visitors. He is a rare case of a prehistoric person who can be studied as an individual, with a particular age, health, injuries, and final days.