There is also speculation that someone actually buried him–it has been
argued that the way the body and equipment were originally laid out suggests
that they had been carefully placed under a cairn of stone. This was not
immediately evident, as the body had been tumbled around by the moving
glacier ice, but if this is the case, perhapsŐtzi did not die alone in the
mountains.
The scientific researches have told us an amazing amount about this man,
his life and death. They cannot tell us who killed him. However, we can
imagine a number of possible scenarios based on the evidence. One theory
suggests that he was killed by someone he knew–because they had taken the
trouble to retrieve that arrowshaft from his back, which would have identified
its owner, and because they did not take his valuable copper axe, again
something that would have been recognisable. Was this a simple revenge
killing? If so, what about the possible evidence of other people from the DNA
analyses? Perhaps the bloodstains had been left on his equipment and clothing
some time in the past rather than during his last journey in the mountains. Was
he an outcast from his community who had to be hunted down and disposed
of? Did his illnesses set him apart, or perhaps his metal skills made him
someone to be suspicious about–such skills must have seemed very much
like magic to people living a stone age life.
Was he in the mountains as a shepherd or herdsman, or crossing them to
trade with other groups, or even, perhaps to hunt for more copper ore? Could
he have been carrying something valuable apart from his own equipment, for
which he was attacked and robbed by bandits? We will never know for sure.
Perhaps more important than knowing how he died, however, is that the
discovery of his body has allowed us to know that he lived at all.Őtzi has
brought us face to face with a real person, with aches and pains, skills and a
life history, who lived five and a half thousand years ago, at a crucial moment
in the development of our world–the point where stone tools were being
superseded by metal ones, and modern technology began.^14
THE OLDEST CRIMES