IN 1991, HIKERS HIGH IN THE MOUNTAINS ON ITALY’S BORDER
with Austria discovered a mummified body protruding from
a glacier. Little did they suspect that this “iceman” was a time
traveler from the Copper Age. Indeed, further investigation
revealed that the 5,300-year-old Ötzi the Iceman—named
for the Ötztal Valley near his death site—is the oldest intact
human ever found. “Not since Howard Carter unlocked the
tomb of King Tutankhamun in the early 1920s had an ancient
human so seized the world’s imagination,” wrote mountain-
eer and author David Roberts.
Over the ensuing three decades, scientists have used an
array of high-tech tools, including 3D endoscopy and DNA
analysis, to examine the iceman and refine his biography in
exquisite detail. What at first appeared to be a tale of a solitary
Neolithic hunter overtaken by the elements has morphed into
a riveting murder mystery.
He was in his mid-40s, a rather elderly man for his time.
He suffered from worn joints, hardened arteries, gallstones,
advanced gum disease, and tooth decay. While these health
factors made his life uncomfortable, they did not kill him.
In 2001, a radiologist x-rayed Ötzi’s chest and detected a
stone arrowhead, smaller than a quarter, lodged beneath the
left shoulder blade. The forensic evidence became even more
intriguing in 2005, when new CT scan technology revealed
that the arrowhead, probably flint, had made a half-inch gash
in the iceman’s left subclavian artery. Such a serious wound
would have been almost immediately fatal. The conclusion:
An attacker, positioned behind and below his target, fired an
arrow that struck Ötzi’s left shoulder. Within minutes, the
victim collapsed, lost consciousness, and bled out.
For all the answers that scientists have found about the
iceman, many questions still remain. At the top of the list:
Who killed this prehistoric hunter, and why?CIRCA 3300 B.C. ÖTZTAL ALPS, ITALYFrozen in time under a glacier in the
Alps, this Neolithic hunter felled by a
foe’s arrow about 5,300 years ago is
the oldest intact human ever discovered.ICE AGE ARTISTS
The Lascaux Cave in
southwestern France
preserves the artwork
of Paleolithic painters
who evoked on a grand
scale the animals they
knew nearly 20,000
years ago.
SISSE BRIMBERG