Otzi the Iceman, a 5,300 Year Old European Mummy Reveals the Complexity and Sophistication of Neolithic Human Culture

Otzi the Iceman is one of my favorite teaching tools for Neolithic/Bronze Age history.  Discovered frozen in the Italian Alps in 1991, Otzi was an almost perfectly preserved man who lived 5,300 years ago in Copper Age Europe.  3,300 BC is an exciting time worldwide with the appearance of complex, diversified cities with hallmarks of modern civilization in Mesopotamia and Egypt.  Writing is beginning to develop as well haling the advent of recorded history.  Europe lagged behind lacking written language and cities but the inhabitants still lived in pretty well developed, complex societies.

Standing 5’5 and weighing 135 lbs., Otzi was likely murdered given the arrowhead found in his back shoulder making him the world’s oldest cold case murder mystery.  Snow and ice quickly covered Otzi preserving his body right down to his stomach contents.  Amazingly, recent DNA tests have identified 19 modern relatives still living in Austria.  Otzi had 61 separate tattoos, many on or near joints which may have indicated some form of acupuncture or acupressure treatments. 

Otzi’s last meal consisted of red deer meat, cured  (not cooked) goat meat and wheat, probably bread, within eight hours of his death.  Various forms of pollen discovered on Otzi reveal he had access to berries sloes (a plumlike fruit), poppy seeds and barley.  Cheesemaking dates to at lest 5,500 BC and may have begun around the time humans domesticated goats in 8,000 BC.  Otzi ate a lot of fatty meats for the energy he would need to hike in the Alps and cheese would have made a logical choice as a food option.  Yet Otzi had not eaten any cheese.  The reason was simple.  Researchers have determined Otzi was lactose intolerant which explains why he had not ingested cheese.  (see below for an update on Otzi’s last meals and the details revealed therefrom).  

Otzi is useful in history classes because he straddles a developmental line. Most of his possessions were Neolithic (New Stone Age) but he also possessed a copper axe which demonstrated Europeans were moving into the Copper Age.  In fact, Otzi had high levels of arsenic and copper in his hair follicles which imply he smelted copper.  Even though he had access to metals, most of Otzi’s tools were wood and stone demonstrating how older technology remained essential.  When discovered, Otzi’s copper axe was the oldest known metal tool in Europe by over 1,000 years.  This fact serves as an important reminder that we have only a fragmentary understanding of the people of this era.  Most of Otzi’s possessions would not normally have survived intact over thousands of years.  Wood, animal skins and items made of plant material would rot away.  Metal can be melted and re-purposed which probably happened a lot with early metal tools and weapons.  Therefore, it is hardly surprising that 

When teaching, one of the big points I try to make with students is that primitive does not mean less intelligent.  Otzi’s clothing provides a great example of just how sophisticated human beings were even in the Stone Age.  Otzi dressed in layers to protect himself from the cold, just as we do today.  His boots were composed of three separate animal skins refined into leather to maximize their respective attributes.  Using thick bear skin for the sole made sense for obvious reasons.  The shoe had tree bark string netting around the foot that Otzi stuffed with dry grass for insulation placing moss directly around the foot as a natural spongy support.  To cover the netting, Otzi stitched deer skin to the sole using cow sinews.  Last, Otzi attached his shoes to goatskin leggings.  The goatskin was probably used for its greater flexibility.  Otzi’s shoe combined four different animal tissues (bearskin, deerskin, goatskin and cow sinews) with three more natural components (grass, moss and tree bark string) for remarkably complex and useful footwear. 

The use of different animal parts in his clothing prove that like Neolithic/early Copper Age peoples around the world, Otzi wasted nothing.  His equipment reinforces the point.  He had a bow and a quiver which contained arrows, some of which had arrowheads and fletching.  Some arrows were broken or incomplete which indicate Otzi manufactured his own weaponry and also recovered the arrows after shooting them, repairing and reusing them. 

However, clothing and tools were not created for utilitarian purposes alone.  Otzi’s assembled his coat from four skins of two animals, goat and sheep.  The coat is distinctively striped implying it was a fashion statement or perhaps an indicator of social status.  The copper axe may have also been a symbol of wealth as any processed metals would undoubtedly have been rare, expensive, and time consuming to create.  Further, the dagger attached to his belt had few signs of wear which implies it was more of a status symbol than a practical tool or weapon.  

Scientists have been performing tests on Otzi and his equipment since his discovery and articles frequently appear identifying new discoveries.  The copper in Otzi’s axe has been traced to the Tuscany region over 350 miles from where he died.  The chert stones Otzi used to flake into sharp points came from three locations all between 25 and 50 miles of his home valley.  A recent 2018 study of the tools reveals from wear patterns that Otzi was right handed and that he sharpened his own tools.  His tools were not as skillfully sharpened as some tools found at other sites revealing he was proficient but not an expert. 

For students, we can open a discussion of several issues on this point (no pun intended).  Shaping stone tools requires years of practice and is an artform.  Flaking a stone can be tricky requiring knowledge of how hard to strike the stone, what angles to use so as not to chip away too much.  Learning to chip large flakes at first to create a general shape and then using smaller cherts and more delicate techniques to chip away small pieces to hone a sharp edge.  It is at this point that I mention that stone is a highly effective blade and should not be dismissed as primitive.  There is a line of modern surgical scalpels used by modern surgeons in the US made of obsidian. 

We also have a chance to perform our own analysis.  Do the imperfectly sharpened tools actually reflect less skill?  We know Otzi travelled in a harsh wilderness.  Perhaps when he was in the field, he took less time to sharpen the edges of his tools when he was sitting by a firs on a snowy mountainside.  Otzi did not need perfection, he needed tools that worked effectively which meant he may not have worried about whether the edge of his tools were perfectly formed.  He likely traded for the copper axe and his chert stones due to their varied geographic origins.  Maybe he traded for stone tools without ever becoming an expert in tool making himself.  These sorts of details can generate enthusiastic discussion.  

Since writing this article, several new studies have emerged that reveal new details.  As new techniques and technologies emerge, scientists can find new ways to make new discoveries.  For example, researchers have recently been able to identify Otzi’s last meals and the order in which the food was eaten using the pollen recovered from Otzi’s meals and determining the rate of digestion.

Using this new data, in the last hours of his life, scientists have reconstructed some of his activities.  Roughly 33 hours before he died, Otzi was roughly 8,200 feet above sea level when he had a meal.  He descended almost 6,000 feet where he ate (pollen on his food indicates the altitude) and sustained a wound to his right hand.  The wound had begun healing at the time of Otzi’s death which allows scientists to approximate the timing of the injury.  Because the wound appeared to be defensive in nature, researchers believe Otzi was attacked or involved in some form of combat.

Pollen on Otzi’s next meal came 4-5 hours before his death at 9,800 feet above sea level and Otzi ate one more time within an hour of dying.  This data is a great way to demonstrate how science and history can combine to reconstruct the past.  Using a few set points, meals, the hand wound and moment of death combined with microscopic analysis of pollen allows researchers to create a remarkable picture of Otzi’s last hours.

Otzi had arrows but no bow.  Researchers speculate that he was involved in one or more altercations before his death as indicated by the hand wound and lack of a bow.  The fact that he ascended into the mountains may have been an indication that he was being pursued and was finally overtaken and killed.  The wound to his dominant hand between the thumb and forefinger likely inhibited his ability to defend himself.  These details provide a great opportunity to allow students to speculate about Otzi’s last hours and the reasons for his death.

I included some details about Otzi’s toolkit above but there was more to the article.  Using microscopes and a CT scanner, researchers were able to assess the tools themselves.  They were generally worn down from repeated re-sharpenings and seemed near the end of their usefulness.  Unlike today where we discard cheaply made tools that are not intended to last, in Otzi’s time, making or obtaining new tools would be a time consuming process.  Otzi likely would have used his tools as long as possible before creating/obtaining new ones.

Here is the website of the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology where Otzi and his possessions reside.  I strongly recommend that you check out the site.  I have only scratched the surface of what we have learned from this remarkable discovery.  If you want to see a specific article or source for this post, let me know in the comments section and I will post it in a response. 

http://www.iceman.it/en/

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Photographs and images are reproduced in a manner consistent with US Fair Use laws.

Most of the photographs came from the South Tyrol Museum

The chart of Otzi’s last hours came from: https://gizmodo.com/final-days-of-otzi-the-iceman-revealed-through-new-anal-1826982899