Italian iceman investigation studies

Some of the most spectacular examples of archaeological chemistry in action in recent years have come from the study of unusual human remains. Otzi the Iceman from the Italian Alps and Kennewick Man from the State of Washington are two dramatic cases. The Iceman is the name given to the remains of a body frozen for 5,000 years in a glacier in the Italian Alps. A warm summer in 1991 melted the glacier and exposed his icy corpse. Since that time almost every known kind of archaeological science has been applied to his remains to learn about the man and his activities before he died. One of these investigations is summarized in Chap. 9, Conclusions. 

A classic example of the use of multiple lines of evidence in archaeological chemistry involves the 1991 discovery of the Iceman, the frozen body of a person from the Neolithic (Fig. 9.3), found in the Italian Alps (Fig. 9.4). The Iceman is one of the most studied archaeological finds of any period. Many of these investigations involved archaeological chemistry in one form or another, and involved the clothing and artifacts found with the Iceman, as well as the frozen remains of the man himself. Nicknamed Otzi after a nearby valley, he is one of the most important archaeological finds of all time. 

---