Tyrolean iceman

Kurt Varmuza was bom in 1942 in Vienna, Austria. He studied chemistry at the Vienna University of Technology, Austria, where he wrote his doctoral thesis on mass spectrometry and his habilitation, which was devoted to the field of chemometrics. His research activities include applications of chemometric methods for spectra-structure relationships in mass spectrometry and infrared spectroscopy, for structure-property relationships, and in computer chemistry, archaeometry (especially with the Tyrolean Iceman), chemical engineering, botany, and cosmo chemistry (mission to a comet). Since 1992, he has been working as a professor at the Vienna University of Technology, currently at the Institute of Chemical Engineering. 

The data used in this example are from anthropology. A set of n 34 tissue samples from human mummies and references have been characterized by the concentrations of eight fatty acids (m = 8). These data have been selected from a larger data set worked out and evaluated in a project about the Tyrolean Iceman (Makristathis et al. 2002 Varmuza et al. 2005). 

Application of multivariate statistics to fatty acid data from the Tyrolean Iceman and other mummies is a mosaic stone in the investigation of this mid-European ancestor, which is still a matter of research (Marota and Rollo 2002 Murphy et al. 2003 Nerlich et al. 2003). The iceman is on public display in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy, stored at —6°C and 98% humidity, the conditions as they probably were during the last thousands of years. 

Makristathis, A., Schwarzmeier, J., Mader, R., Varmuza, K., Simonitsch, I., Chavez Chavez, J., et al. (2002). Fatty acid composition and preservation of the Tyrolean Iceman and other mummies. /. Lipid Res. 43, 2056-2061. 

Dickson, James H., K. Oeggl, T.G. Holden, L.L. Handley, TC. O Connell, T. Preston. 2000. The omnivorous Tyrolean iceman colon contents (meat, cereals, pollen, moss and whipworm) and stable isotope analyses. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 355 1843-1849. 

Rollo, F., Luciani, S., Canapa, A., Marota, I. 2000. Analysis of bacterial DNA in skin and muscle of the Tyrolean iceman offers new insight into the mummification process. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 111 211-219. 

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). 

Handt, Oliva, Martin Richards, Marion Trommsdorff, Christian Kilger, Jaana Simanainen, Oleg Georgiev, et al. Molecular Genetic Analyses of the Tyrolean Ice Man. Science 264 (June 17, 1994) 1,775-1,778. The researchers found genetic fragments in the Iceman s remains that are closely related to people living today in parts of central and northern Europe. 

Spatially resolved MS techniques that make use of ionic sources based on direct LDI have been employed to study art and archaeological objects since 2002 [43,44]. However, direct LDI is only effective in the study of a limited range of materials. TTie use of matrices that assist the ionization process induced by MALDI has expanded the applicability of LDI-based MS methods to the field of spatially resolved studies of organic components from works of art. Examples of the applicability of MALDI to the analysis of pigments [45], siccative oils [46], proteinaceous binders [47-49], and varnishes [50] are indeed reported in the literature. A proteomic approach based on the use of MALDI-TOF was also used to identify biological samples taken from the more than 5300-year-old Tyrolean mummy, also called iceman or Oetzi [51]. 

Oetzi the Iceman (Figure 20.10) is a Neolithic hunter whose frozen remains were found in the Similaun Glacier on the Austrian/Italian border in the Tyrolean Alps. Analysis of the Iceman shows that for every 15.3 units of gC present at the time of his death, 8.1 remain today. How old is the Iceman ... 

Figure 20.10 Oetzi the Iceman. He was found in a glacier in the Tyrolean Alps near the Austrian/Italian border in 1991. He is believed to have lived in about 3300 B.C. He was so well preserved that scientists were able to examine the contents of his digestive system, finding that he was an omnivore. 

---