By Eliza Stone

On September 19, 1991, two German hikers stumbled upon a human corpse buried in the ice of the Tisenjoch glacier on the Italy-Austria border. Four days later, a scientist from the Medical University of Innsbruck in Austria realized that this was not just a lost hiker or an ordinary body, but an ancient corpse dating back to the Copper Age. A discovery so fascinating, even Brad Pitt has the corpse, commonly known as the Iceman, tattooed on his forearm. 

Ötzi, named for where he was found in the Ötzal Alps, was preserved inside a glacier for millennia, and as global temperatures rise and glaciers recede, the Iceman was revealed to the hikers. Ötzi’s body was naturally preserved by the ice, making him the only well-preserved body that has been found in Europe from his time. Scientists were able to discover that Ötzi lived between 3370 BCE and 3100 BCE, placing him in the Copper Age. 

Scientists carefully examined and reconstructed Ötzi. Photo credit: P. Plailly/E. Daynes/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY.

Ötzi was preserved so well in the ice that his organs and skin were almost completely intact after over five thousand years. Ötzi is considered a wet mummy, so unlike Egyptian mummies that are destroyed by the hot and dry desert climate, the combination of the humidity and ice kept Ötzi in nearly perfect condition. 

During the Copper Age, which stretched from approximately 3500 BCE to 2300 BCE, humans began to make tools out of copper, although it is a considerably weak metal. The use and manufacture of tools became widespread during the Copper Age in Europe, and food became more available and was produced with surpluses. Societies experienced massive population growth, increased interest in the arts, and the formation of social hierarchies. 

My aunt, Dr. Anne Stone. Photo credit: user Prim8acs via Wikimedia Commons.

Dr. Anne Stone, an anthropological geneticist and professor at Arizona State University, and my father’s sister, was a member of the team of scientists that conducted research on Ötzi. After graduating from the University of Virginia with degrees in both biology and archaeology in 1989, Stone’s passion for anthropological genetics began in college: “I was a biology major, vaguely pre-med, and my second year I took a human origins class that I found really interesting. I double-majored in biology and archaeology and realized I could continue to do both.” 

Stone continued on to Pennsylvania State University to pursue biology and archaeology in graduate school. During her second year at Penn State, she attended a conference where she met biologist Dr. Svante Pääbo, and she applied for and received a scholarship to work in his lab at the University of Munich in Germany. Stone graduated from Penn State with a Master’s Degree and a Ph.D. in anthropology and was then offered a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona. She is now a professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University in Tempe.

Scientists believe that global warming is a major contributor to why the Iceman was found. Stone commented that Ötzi’s discovery was somewhat of a perfect storm: “The glaciers are receding, and a hiker just happened to be up there to see him.” The combination of an unusually warm season and falling dust from the Sahara desert that year melted the ice preserving Ötzi, revealing his head and shoulders. 

Ötzi was preserved in a glacier, or years worth of fallen snow that, over time, compressed into a large mass of ice. Because of their enormous mass, glaciers have the unique ability to flow, almost like a river, but the glacier remains solid. Glaciers are considered the last remnant of the Ice Age, when glaciers covered over 60% of the world. They now cover around 10% of the world’s total land area, and many around the world are shrinking. 

Ötzi was found at the red dot in the Alps. Photo credit: Mai-Sachme

Glaciers provide some of the most dramatic evidence that global temperatures are rising. In 1980, glaciers worldwide lost an average of nine inches of ice per year. From 2010 to 2018, glaciers lost an average of three feet annually. At the current rate of rising temperatures, researchers estimate that all glaciers will have melted by 2100. Permafrost environments, such as the tundra of northern Siberia, are also beginning to thaw, releasing carbon into the atmosphere and speeding up the global warming process. Stone said, “There might be artifacts under all that ice. The question is, will someone happen to be nearby to find it?”  

As global warming continues, other remnants of past societies are uncovered. Stone said, “scientists are beginning to find things in Norway and Sweden in places that are normally just snow. Things that hunters dropped.” 

More of Ötzi’s tools and his preserved arrows. Photo credit: Leatherworking Reverend.

Along with being somewhat of a coincidence, Ötzi’s discovery led to an international debate. Stone said, “Ötzi was found right on the border between Austria and Italy. They thought he was just a hiker who had died, but the Austrians then realized that this was prehistoric during the recovery process, and then the Austrians and Italians started to fight about where he was found. Ötzi was technically found in Italy, but that part of Italy speaks German, and their home university is Innsbruck in Austria.” So Ötzi was taken to Austria for continued research and investigation.

When the lab at the University of Munich was asked to join Ötzi’s team, Stone found herself the only American in a room full of European scientists investigating their somewhat miraculous discovery. Stone recounts the first days in the lab, saying “There were three groups there. It was really weird, actually. There was an Italian group, an Austrian group, and us, the German group. Even though everybody in the room could speak English, the Austrians chose to speak German, and we had an interpreter to communicate with the Italians.”

Ötzi’s cause of death is still somewhat of a mystery to scientists. Because of wounds on his hands and an arrowhead embedded in his shoulder, researchers believe the Iceman was murdered and fled up the Alps to escape his attackers. Anthropologist Albert Zinc said, “It was quite an unusual situation to find this person murdered in the Alps, at quite a high altitude. Nobody could really explain why he was up there.”

Ötzi’s body is covered in around 61 tattoos, many of which are simply vertical and horizontal lines clustered around hard-working areas of the body, such as the lower back, ankles, knees, and wrists. These marks are believed to be from a type of acupuncture or pain relief practiced when Ötzi was alive. Some of Ötzi’s other tattoos are possibly tribal markings, possibly those of a community leader. These tattoos further prove that during the Copper Age, humans were already forming communities that cared for each other. Stone said, “From his clothing and his tattoos, you can see that he was part of a community, and social connection has always been important to humans.” 

Scientists used genetic techniques to estimate what the Iceman looked like when he was alive. Photo credit: flickr user Recon4.

The Iceman’s corpse helped scientists learn about the history of human distribution. Scientists were able to find a specific bacterium in Ötzi’s stomach that can act as a tracer of human migration. Over half of the present-day population also has this bacteria in their stomachs, but Ötzi’s strain was identified as a strand specific to Asia. This discovery tells researchers that during Ötzi’s lifetime, humans carrying the African strand of this bacteria had not yet migrated to Europe.  

Ötzi’s body provided scientists with information and clarification about what humans ate during the Copper Age. However, this was impossible for almost twenty years after Ötzi’s discovery because of his misplaced stomach, which was found pushed up under his ribs. Stone said, “they’ve been able to see his last meal and what he had been eating.” Ötzi’s last meal included dried goat meat, deer, wheat, and toxic plants. 

Yoshan Moodley, a South African researcher who focused on Ötzi, said “He had a rough lifestyle. He was walking a lot in the mountains. He had degenerative diseases in his lower back and knee. He had some intestinal parasites and Lyme Disease.” Ötzi also had many anatomical abnormalities, including missing wisdom teeth, a missing pair of ribs, and he was believed to be infertile. 

While Ötzi’s DNA and corpse itself are fascinating, the objects found with his body provide additional insight into life during the Copper Age. Stone commented that “What’s really fascinating about the Iceman is the stuff that they found with him. They have his clothes, his arrows, and his tools, a lot of things that don’t normally survive.” Because of his encapsulation in the glacier, the contents of Ötzi’s backpack also remained in nearly perfect condition.

Among his almost perfectly preserved belongings were a bow, arrows, a copper axe, medicinal fungus, and the framings of a wooden backpack. Ötzi’s axe shows the massive strides in technology humans have made since his life. During the Copper Age, people were just beginning to use metals for tools. 

Ötzi’s shoes, stuffed with straw for insulation. Photo credit: Daderot.

Stone said, “He’s Copper Age and has DNA similar to the farmer types during that time, which is great; it’s what we expected. But I think the really interesting thing is that you can see the shoes that he’s wearing and how his arrows were made.” Ötzi’s corpse fits into the conclusions researchers had already made about his era, but his possessions give researchers a clear look at small details and routines of Ötzi’s life, like how he stuffed his shoes with straw for insulation and carried medicinal plants.

After working on Ötzi’s team, Stone found astounding success in her field. She has been a professor at Arizona State University since 2003 and continues to research population history and human adaptation. Stone was elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011 and served as an editor for the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. In 2016, she was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, a society created by President Abraham Lincoln whose goal is “to provide independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology,” and includes members such as Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. 

Since the Iceman’s discovery, DNA research techniques have advanced, and researchers have been able to learn more about him. Stone said, “Since then, with new methods and a better sample, scientists have been able to sequence Ötzi’s full genome.” With his full genome, scientists could determine characteristics like his eye color, blood type, and conditions like his lactose intolerance. They confirmed that his ancestors were from the Middle East and connected that to human migration patterns, hypothesizing that they migrated to Europe when agriculture became more common and global. 

Although he lived over 5,000 years ago, Ötzi demonstrates what has always been important to humans. His tattoos show he was a part of a community, and his tools show technological advancements. The Iceman provides a time capsule back to the Copper Age. Archaeological scientist Patrick Hunt said, “I think that Ötzi’s benefit to all of us is that we keep pushing back frontiers of human activity.” Ötzi signifies how much humanity has evolved and changed. James Dickson, a professor of archaeobotany, said, “It’s highly improbable that there will ever be another Ötzi – the circumstances of the way he was discovered and preserved are very extraordinary.”