iceman

His weapons, tools, and stock of replacement materials would permit him to survive away from his home village without regular supplies. He carried an axe with a copper blade and a flint dagger with a scabbard made of plant fibers. The remnants of what apparently was a pack-frame for a knapsack was found. Plant fragments show he had been in a settlement during the time when a grain crop was being harvested and threshed, shortly before his death.

Yet it is also clear that critical parts of the Ice Man's equipment were in extremely poor shape or missing altogether — and that he was trying desperately to replace them. He carried a damaged quiver, for instance, with an unfinished bow, two arrows, and 12 rough arrow shafts. He must have been working on them as he made his doomed crossing of the Alps.

All this suggests Ötzi left somewhere in a great hurry, without taking all his equipment, and that he was trying to elude his pursuers by taking a route over the main Alpine chain. He failed. But Ötzi's lonely death gave him an immortality of sorts. An ambassador from the past, he put a face on our ancestors that changed forever our view of the people of prehistory.

Scientists were surprised not only by the warmth of Ötzi's clothing, but also by the quality of its construction.

He was wearing three layers of finely stitched clothes: Leather and fur from domestic and wild animals provided most of his wardrobe. The outer layer was a woven grass cape or cloak.

The grass cloak was open in front and may have had slits for his arms. It was braided from long grasses and would have provided a level of water repellence over his fur clothing and gear. Ötzi wore the cloak when he died, but at other times it was likely used as a ground cloth or a blanket.

Up from his shoes he was covered with leather leggings that fit loosely around his thighs and attached to his belt.

On his head, the iceman wore a tall cap made of individually cut pieces of bear fur. It included leather straps that might have served as a chin strap.

Bears would have been much more prevalent in the iceman's time than they are today in much of Europe. Humans probably joined into groups to hunt bears.

Some scientists were stunned by the quality and utility of Ötzi's shoes. They offered warmth, protection and even weather-proofing in the high-alpine environment where Ötzi died. Wide at the bottom and waterproof, they could have been designed for snow travel. Ötzi had evidence of frostbite to only one toe.

Each shoe had a bearskin sole, with deer hide for a top. The shoe frame or netting was made from grass cords that covered the instep and heel. The net held in place grass that was stuffed into the shoes for warmth. A cord-net also covered a loop hanging down from the leggings. Attached to the sole leather were uppers, believed to have been made of fur, that continued up the leg like a boot and were tied around the ankle with grass cords.

One of the most stunning discoveries in Ötzi's possession was a copper ax. Why? Scientists had long believed that humans were melting and shaping copper with such precision only about 4,000 years ago — more than 1,000 years after Ötzi lived.

In addition, analysis of Ötzi's hair seems to indicate that he did much copper work himself. Truly, this mummy is forcing archaeologists to revisit what should be considered the Copper Age.

The handle of Ötzi's ax was 2 feet long and made of yew wood. The blade was less than 4 inches long, its edge slightly curved with small points at its tips. The blank of the blade was cast. This means some quantity of metal was melted in a thick-walled ceramic pot by heating it with a bellows to at least 1,100 degrees Celsius, then poured into a mold.

The iceman's bow and arrows have been the subject of considerable speculation among the experts who have studied his remains. The fact that he carried mostly broken arrows and a bow under construction (but no usable bow in his possession) has led to theories that Ötzi had recently met with a violent encounter — either with other humans or a wild animal — and perhaps had fled high into the mountains in retreat.

They assume that he found a suitable piece of wood from an evergreen yew trunk and was working on it at night while resting at camp. Perhaps he was even working on it before falling asleep the night he died.

Ötzi 's fur quiver, where he kept his arrows, contained 12 blank shafts and two finished arrows, which were broken. His bow was more than 6 feet long. The yew wood from which he worked was ideal for bow-making; it's tough and elastic, almost never splinters and has no resin.

Fire may have been critical to Ötzi's survival in the cold mountains, and he carried a fire-making kit with him in a pair of birch-bark containers with charcoal. A belt pouch contained flints for starting sparks, and fungus for tinder. For fuel he would have used reticulate willow, green alder, Norway spruce, pine, elm and maybe amelanchier.

Ötzi would have carried live embers with him, insulating the bark container with Norway maple leaves and grass.

Stomach Contents

Ötzi's mummification was so complete and happened so rapidly (experts think he froze and was encased in a glacier soon after death) that even his internal organs remain intact. In fact, scientists have been able to examine his stomach contents and intestines to learn about diet in the Neolithic period. They even know what he ate for his last meal!

When they found pollen inside his colon, scientists speculated that Ötzi had died in late summer, perhaps in an early snowstorm. But University of Innsbruck archaeobotanist Klaus Oeggl reconstructed his last meal from microscopic analysis of a sample taken from his transverse colon. The sample contained pollen varieties that would have landed on Ötzi's food or water, or were inhaled and trapped in his saliva. It proved that Ötzi must have died in spring or early summer.

Most of the pollen came from the hop-hornbeam tree, which grows in a warmer environment. So Oeggl knew which side of the mountain Ötzi had been on just before his death, and in which season. The hop-hornbeam tree blooms between March and June. Sperm in the pollen grain usually decays after exposure to air or water, but it was still intact. Thus it was absorbed soon after leaving the tree, and the nearest stands of hop-hornbeam trees would have grown in a valley to the south, some six hours away by foot.

Oeggl believes that only eight hours before he died, Ötzi was to the south in what is now Italy's Schnals Valley, eating his last meal: unleavened einkorn wheat bread, an herb or another green plant, and meat.

Because einkorn doesn't grow naturally in Europe, finding it in Ötzi's intestinal tract suggests contact with an agricultural community. The wheat was probably finely ground into meal and made into bread rather than eaten as a porridge, in which case the grains would have been eaten whole and found in larger pieces in the colon. 

Experts think that Ötzi ate his last meal about eight hours before he died, well down in a valley to the south of the high mountains where he ended up that night. His last meal was unleavened bread made of einkorn wheat (a staple of his diet), probably an herb, and a bit of meat.

Ötzi's teeth were very worn down, which could be explained in part by the eating of dried meat and grain that had been ground in quartz-sandstone containers. However, because food was virtually unprocessed, Ötzi had no cavities.

Researchers think that Ötzi didn't have an ounce of extra fat on his body because of a combination of difficult lifestyle and irregular diet.

The iceman carried a medicine kit of sorts, which could indicate a rather sophisticated understanding of the body and how nature could be used to heal illness.

Among his possessions were two dried mushrooms on leather straps. The mushrooms are known to have antibiotic properties, and could have been ingested by Ötzi to ward off infections.

Scientists also found high doses of charcoal in Ötzi's colon. Even today, charcoal is used to treat intestinal disorders.

It's clear that Ötzi was in failing health. Researchers found whipworm eggs, Trichuris trichiura, in his colon. Large numbers of these intestinal parasites cause diarrhea.

Scientists were surprised to find 47 markings that were clearly tattoos on Ötzi's skin. They were even more surprised that the back and leg tattoos were on or near typical acupuncture points for treating back and leg pain. X-rays showed evidence of osteoarthrosis in Ötzi that might have responded to acupuncture.