Otzi the Iceman

The axe of "Otzi the Iceman (well-preserved mummy dated to 3300 BC) is made from copper. 

The reddish metal was already known in prehistoric times. It occasionally occurs as a native metal, but mostly in conspicuous green ores, from which it is extracted relatively easily. It is convenient to work, but not very hard. Not very optimal as a tool ("Otzi the Iceman" had a copper axe with him). Only through the addition of tin is the more useful bronze obtained. Its zinc alloy is the versatile and widely used brass. Copper is one of the coinage metals. Water pipes are commonly made of copper. Its very good thermal and electrical conductivity is commonly exploited (cable ), as well as its durability (roofs, gutters), as the verdigris (basic copper carbonate) protects the metal. Cu phthalocyanines are the most beautiful blue pigments. Seems to be essential to all life as a trace element. In some molluscs, Cu replaces Fe in the heme complex. A 70-kg human contains 72 mg. 

The BBC Website has a page dedicated to Otzi the Iceman, with some nice pictures go to http //www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/iceman.shtml, which also reproduces the full transcript of an hour-long documentary. 

Otzi the Iceman, and some artifacts found around his body (Werner Nosko/EPA/Corbis]... 

German tourists hiking in the Italian Alps discover Otzi the Iceman, a remarkably well preserved 5,300-year-old body. 

Fowler, Brenda. Iceman Uncovering the Life and Times of a Prehistoric Man Found in an Alpine Glacier. New York Random ffouse, 2000. Fowler, a journalist, chronicles the discovery and subsequent studies of Otzi the Iceman. Although a lot of research has occurred since the publication of this book, the author provides a wealth of interesting detail on the people, politics, and science associated with the period shortly following this amazing discovery. 

South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology Oetzi/Otzi, the Iceman. Available online. URL http //www.archaeologiemuseum.it/f01 ice uk.html. Accessed May 28, 2009. The Web site of the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, which houses Otzi, presents photographs and information on the mummy, clothing, and equipment. 

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. 

Herbal medicines are any plants or plant extracts used for treating ailments, aches, pain, or discomfort. They can range from culinary remedies (like chicken soup for the common cold), to calming extracts (like mint tea), to eating whole herbs. Every ancient civilization seems to have discovered the use of plants as medicines in one form or another. Even as far back as five thousand years ago, humans were using herbal medicines, as evidenced by herbs being found alongside well-preserved, mummified humans like Otzi the Iceman. 

Approximately 5000 years ago, a man set out to climb the Tyrolean Alps on the Austrian-Italian border. At death, he was between 40 and 50 years old and suffered from several medical ailments. Some scientists believe he was caught in a heavy snowfall, fell asleep, and froze to death. Others suppose he was murdered during his journey. Either way, his body was covered with snow almost immediately and, due to the freezing weather, rapidly became a mummy - The Iceman . In 1991, his body was re-exposed and discovered by climbers in the Otzal Alps, explaining why the Iceman , as he was called, was given the nickname Otzi (or, more commonly, as just Otzi). 

The mummy only weighs about 30 poimds (13 kg) and is about five feet (1.54 m) in length, but because of shrinkage this does not reflect the Iceman s true physique. According to the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy, which houses the body, the living Otzi would have been about 63 inches tall (1.6 m) and weighed 110 pounds (50 kg). 

By examining Otzi s teeth and bones and comparing their isotope ratios to those foimd in the nearby environments, archaeologists can get clues about where the Iceman grew up and where he spent his adulthood. (More precisely, these measurements indicate where Otzi s food and water came from. But in this ancient era, Otzi would have probably obtained most or perhaps all of the necessities of Ufe from the local area.) Teeth enamel provide clues of childhood environment, and bone, which gets remade every decade or two, indicates a more recent abode. 

Another study of Otzi s DNA is more controversial. In 2003, the archaeologist Tom Loy at the University of Queensland in Australia tested some of the Iceman s equipment, including his knife, arrows, and coat. Loy had noted signs of blood, and when he used PCR on the samples, he found not one individual s DNA, but four. This evidence suggests that... 

Analyses of food and drink are not limited to the residues of unconsumed substances. In the Iceman s case, scientists had access to the body—and therefore to Otzi s last ingested meals. 

One theory, based on the pollen analysis, suggests that when Otzi returned from a trip to higher altitudes, he got into a dispute with some people in the village. According to the isotope evidence coming from the Iceman s bones and teeth, he was familiar with the area, so he would have probably known the villagers—they may have even been relatives. Otzi retreated back into the moimtains after the fight, only to die at the hands of a skilled archer. 

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. 

Fig. 9.5 The Iceman s axe, found as part of the equipment of Otzi, frozen in the ice with the preserved body of a man 5,300 years old. The copper axe was bound to the haft with sinew and a birch pitch...

CI.32 The iceman known as Otzi was discovered in a high mountain pass on the Austrian-Italian border. Samples of his hair and bones had carbon-14 activity that was 50% of that present in new hair or bone. Carbon-14 undergoes beta decay and has a half-life of 5730 y. (16.2, 16.4)... 

For a briefer scientific analysis of Otzi, Archeological Chemistry (above) devotes a small case study to Otzi, see its p. 251 ff. And several Websites are devoted to him, including http //info.uibk.ac.at/c/c5/c552/Forschung/Iceman/iceman-en.html and the French site http //www.archeobase.com/v texte/otzi/corp/cor.htm. 

Paabo and his colleagues took extraordinary precautions in their analyses, comparing their results with controls that did not contain any Iceman samples. The researchers showed that several sequences found in the samples were contaminants, but Otzi s DNA was slightly different and, as expected, more degraded because of age. As an additional control, the researchers performed several experiments in a different laboratory, showing that the DNA they found was not a contaminant contributed by their own equipment. 

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