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The Iceman Ötzi P1 - A prehistoric murder case – With Dr Albert Zink (S01E07)
114 Plays3 years ago
The Iceman, this may sound like the name of a wrestler or comic-book hero, but today we’re actually talking about one of the most sensational archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. Exactly 30 years ago in 1991 this now world-famous mummy was discovered accidentally, in the Ötztal Alps between Austria and Italy, at an altitude of 3210 meters. At the time of discovery, it was unclear what a sensational find the frozen body represented. But after the effective age of the mummy of over 5000 years was proven, media interest was enormous. The German speaking media gave the individual the name Ötzi (from the Ötztal mountain range). In the English-speaking world, he was named "The ice man", or "Man from the ice".
In these 30 years since his discovery, Ötzi's body have been studied by many different sciences, from archaeology, anthropology medicine, forensics, botany and so on. And I am very happy to present to you my conversation with Dr. Albert Zink, head of the institute for mummy studies at the European academy in Bolzano and actually in charge of preserving the body of the prehistoric Iceman.
Reverences:
- Maixner et al. (2018), The Iceman's Last Meal Consisted of Fat, Wild Meat, and Cereals
- Fleckinger Ed. (2011), Ötzi 2.0: Eine Mumie zwischen Wissenschaft, Kult und Mythos
- Möckli (2011), Medizinische Untersuchungen und Ergebnisse an Ötzi
Website: https://23minarch.com
Support: patreon.com/23minarch
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Transcript
Introduction to Ötzi, the Iceman
00:00:09
Speaker
The Iceman Otsy Part 1 A Prehistoric Murder Case
00:00:15
Speaker
The Iceman. This may sound like the name of a wrestler or comic book hero, but today we are actually talking about one of the most sensational archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. The discovery happened exactly 30 years ago, on September 19th, 1991, as a funny coincidence also exactly one month before I was born.
Discovery of Ötzi
00:00:44
Speaker
A German couple discovered this now world-famous mummy partially sticking out of the ice while hiking on the Tusnjoch mountain of the Ötstahl Alps between Austria and Italy at an altitude of 3,210 meters.
00:01:04
Speaker
At the time of discovery, it was unclear what a sensational find the frozen body represented. He was first believed to be a lost hiker or soldier from the First World War, but after the effective age of the mummy was established, media interest was enormous.
00:01:27
Speaker
The German-speaking media gave the individual the name Ötzi from the Ötstal mountain range, which became a household name to most people, even if they are not otherwise interested in archaeology.
00:01:42
Speaker
In the English-speaking world, he was named, quote, the Ice Man or Man from the Ice. Out of habit, I will, however, also mostly address this mummy as Ötzi. In these
00:01:57
Speaker
30 years since his discovery, Ötzi's body and his preserved equipment have been studied by many different sciences, from archaeology, anthropology, forensics, botany and so on.
Scientific Studies on Ötzi
00:02:13
Speaker
Dozens of articles, papers and books have been published and I'd like to highlight some of these results over the next two episodes.
00:02:23
Speaker
And I'm very happy to present to you my conversation with Dr. Albert Tink, head of the Institute of Mummy Studies at the European Academy in Bolzano, and actually in charge of preserving the body of the prehistoric Iceman. And also I would like to understand what kind of person he was, because we also don't know anything about his type of character, about his personality.
00:02:49
Speaker
I think most people assume he was a nice guy walking around in the mountains, then was shot from behind, but maybe, I don't know, maybe he was a mean guy and he deserved being shot and so on.
00:03:20
Speaker
But first off, how did Ötzi's body actually get preserved over the millennia? Well, in short, his exceptional preservation and mummification was a lucky coincidence. Because contrary to popular belief, Ötzi was never frozen directly in the glacier. The sheer forces when glaciers move over time would have inevitably torn his body apart.
00:03:50
Speaker
his corpse rather laid in a terrain depression which was enclosed by ice, a so-called ice patch. Thanks to this terrain feature, the frozen body was protected and the retreating glacier could slide over this ice patch without destroying the mummy.
00:04:11
Speaker
Based on the preservation of the body, Ötzi was probably covered by snow and ice immediately after his death. This assumption is supported by the fact that the body showed no signs of bite marks by animals or birds.
00:04:30
Speaker
In addition, the preservation of the collagen in the bones showed that the corpse was not or only briefly exposed to UV radiation over all his time, meaning it was not exposed to much sunlight.
00:04:48
Speaker
But the actual reason for his mummification is dehydration, in the sense of freeze drying. Due to this dehydration, the internal organs shrunk significantly and could hardly be detected and examined.
00:05:05
Speaker
The bones, on the other hand, are still well preserved and the clearly visible deformations on Ötzi's skull and chest, if you look at an image of his body, can mainly be attributed to the pressure of the ice which his body was exposed to over the centuries.
00:05:24
Speaker
And unfortunately, at the time of the discovery and subsequent recovery exactly 30 years ago, none of the people initially involved were aware of what a sensation this prehistoric mummy represented. Since it was suspected that it was a lost hiker or soldier from the First World War, the recovery was not specifically cautious or scientific.
00:05:51
Speaker
The extraction of the lower body still enclosed in the ice was particularly careless, using ice picks, ski poles and even a small jackhammer. All of this resulted in severe damage to the mummy. For example, in order to better transport the corpse, the left upper arm was broken when trying to bend the arm.
00:06:17
Speaker
But how was the actual age of this discovered mummy identified?
Preservation and Dating of Ötzi
00:06:23
Speaker
A few days after the recovery, Konrad Spindler, professor of prehistoric archaeology at the University of Innsbruck, dated Ötzi to be at least 4000 years old based on the typology of a copper axe found next to his body, which we will focus on more next episode.
00:06:46
Speaker
But certainty about the actual age of the mummy was finally possible thanks to radiocarbon dating of organic samples taken from Ötzi's body.
00:06:59
Speaker
I'm sure most of you will know, but here I can briefly summarize how radiocarbon or C14 dating works. The radioactive carbon isotope C14 is deposited in the tissues of every living organism, like humans, animals, but also plants, for example.
00:07:22
Speaker
Upon death, this C14 supply stops and it subsequently begins to decay or decrease relatively linearly. So, very simplified, a small sample of just 1 to 3 grams of bone or wood can be analyzed by an accelerator mass spectrometer called AMS.
00:07:47
Speaker
in order to determine or count the remaining C14 isotopes in a sample and thus calculate its age. And the samples from Ötzi show that he must have lived between 3350 and 3120 BC, so over 5000 years ago.
00:08:12
Speaker
To put this into perspective, this mummy is at least 600 years older than the construction of the pyramids of Giza in Egypt. Or, as another example, Alexander the Great, one of my favorite historical personalities, or even Plato and Aristoteles, are closer to our time than the one of Atzi.
00:08:38
Speaker
And to determine how old Ötzi was at the time of his death, additional samples were taken from his long bones. The decisive factor in determining the age at death is the number, extent and size of Austeans, a structural element of bone tissue. These Austeans in the bone cortex were then analyzed under the microscope.
00:09:03
Speaker
With that, his age at death could be determined to be between 40 and 50 years, a relatively high age for people living over 5000 years ago. And overall, he was in surprisingly good health for his age. The few signs of wear on his joints are even less pronounced than, for example, in modern rural mountain farmers of his age.
00:09:30
Speaker
The vascular channels and tendon insertions of his leg bones indicate that Ötzi had quite pronounced leg muscles. Traces of arthrosis in his right hip joint and the area of the cervical vertebra are probably related to his life in the mountains, which led to wear and tear off the joints.
00:09:54
Speaker
The only clear injuries the iceman experienced during his lifetime are completely healed fractures of the seventh and eighth rib on the left side of his body. Such fractures are often the result of falls, for example from a tree. And also the surfaces of all of Ötzi's teeth were heavily worn, but for example Karius was not detected.
00:10:22
Speaker
The wear can mainly be attributed to his diet, but it was also suggested that he used his teeth as tools, for example in the processing of leather. A hair sample of the Iceman was additionally tested for trace elements and it revealed higher levels of magnesium, nickel, copper and arsenic.
00:10:46
Speaker
It was therefore suggested that Ötzi was exposed to these elements in larger doses. One explanation would be the inhalation of smoke during the smelting of ores for copper extraction.
00:11:02
Speaker
If he was really involved in the production of copper objects and thus had knowledge of this then novel technology, this could additionally indicate that he had a special position or status. But we will get back to that in the next episode.
00:11:21
Speaker
And what was a typical meal for high alpine trekking 5,000 years ago? Initially, after his discovery, Atsi's stomach could not be identified with the X-ray and was generally assumed to be empty.
00:11:38
Speaker
But during a recent re-examination, however, his stomach was radiologically found and, excitingly, also shown to be filled. Its content of undigested food provides the unique opportunity to fully reconstruct an over 5,000-year-old meal from the Copper Age.
00:12:01
Speaker
The most abundant elements found were nutritional minerals consistent with the consumption of red meat and plant remains. To further identify the possible food sources, the DNA and protein traces still present in the stomach content were analyzed and the majority of the samples turned out to be from the ibex and red deer and the plant from ferns and wheat.
00:12:30
Speaker
Charcoal particles detected in Utsi's colon further suggest the involvement of fire in the food processing, for example, the smoking of meat over fire to preserve it. And additionally, traces of coriander even suggest that he used herbs to spice his meals.
00:12:52
Speaker
So, to sum up, the microscopic and molecular data suggests that the iceman's last meal consisted of meat from the ibex and red deer supplemented with cereals, representing a well-balanced mix of carbohydrates and proteins, a good energy source for Ötzi's high-alpine tracking.
00:13:17
Speaker
But now, what was the actual cause of death of Ötzi?
The Mystery of Ötzi's Death
00:13:23
Speaker
After his discovery, it was first understandably assumed that Ötzi died of hypothermia or exhaustion in the high alpine terrain of over 3,000 meters or 10,000 feet above sea level. However, this had to be revised in 2001 with a sensational discovery.
00:13:47
Speaker
New x-rays of his torso revealed a flint arrowhead still in his body. On closer examination, an entry wound from an arrow shot was also discovered below his scapula or shoulder blade.
00:14:03
Speaker
the arrowhead was stuck between the left shoulder blade and the ribs. Using similar methods applied in modern homicide cases, the position of the projectile in the body indicated that the shooter of this arrow must have been standing on the left side behind Utzi.
00:14:25
Speaker
But can we be certain that this arrow shot was the actual cause of his death? In 2005, new scans of the blood vessels revealed that this arrowhead fractured the left subclavian artery over a length of 13 mm. Such an injury of a vital artery is usually absolutely fatal.
00:14:50
Speaker
because it leads to severe blood loss, which in turn leads to death by circulatory shock in a very short time. Additionally, the bleeding cannot be stopped by compression and even today, about 60% of patients with similar fractures die before they can be admitted to a hospital. So Atsi must therefore have died very quickly from this arrow shot wound.
00:15:19
Speaker
But this was not the only trace of violence or trauma found on his body. On Ötzi's right hand, a 3.7 cm long cut wound between the thumb and index finger could be detected.
00:15:37
Speaker
It extends from the palm to the back of the hand and was deep enough to puncture the bone. Such an injury is considered a typical defense wound in reaction to a knife thrust. Signs of healing could be detected on the tissue around the wound, which usually appears three to eight days after the injury. This proves that Ötzi suffered the wound while he was still alive.
00:16:07
Speaker
Therefore, it can be assumed that the fatal arrow wound did not occur at the same time as the cut wound on the hand. This indicates that Ötzi had already been involved in a violent altercation a few days before his death.
00:16:26
Speaker
Even though possible motives or reasons for his demise remain unknown, to me it is so fascinating that it was possible to reconstruct Ötzi's actual cause of death and even reveal an over 5000 year old murder case, hence also the name of this episode.
00:16:48
Speaker
And with that, I am very happy to present to you the first part of my conversation with Dr. Albert Tink.
00:17:07
Speaker
Dr Tink, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with me. And maybe to begin, you are the head of the European Institute for Mummy Studies. So you are not uniquely focused on the Iceman or Ötzi. Can you maybe give us a short overview of your research projects at your institute? Yeah, our institute is located here in Bolzano in Italy.
00:17:33
Speaker
at the Euro Research. It's a private research center that deals with many different aspects of research. Our institute focuses on mummy research. Actually, we started with research on the Iceman. This was in the beginning our main focus. But we're also having other mummy studies. We're doing a lot of research on mummies from all parts of the world.
00:17:59
Speaker
So we are studying, for example, Egyptian mummies. I also used to go to excavations in Egypt and study mummies there. I also worked on a project with Egyptian royal mummies with Tutanthamun and Ramesses III that we investigated. And we also studying Egyptian mummies in museums here in Europe.
00:18:19
Speaker
Like the Museo Gizzi Turino, it's maybe one of the biggest in Europe, or the Berlin Museum, the Neues Museum, where they have huge collections of mummies that were brought to Europe. And we took this chance to study this mummy also here in Europe. But we're also studying natural mummies, for example, church mummies from Italy, from Sicily. They had a big collection in Palermo, from the catacombs of the Capuchin friars.
00:18:47
Speaker
There are almost 2,000 mummies that were naturally desiccated. So they are not that old. They may be from the 17th to the 19th century. But also a very interesting collection. And we also started some bog bodies. So mummies from Northern Europe that were naturally preserved in the bog there and this environment. And mummies from South America, from the Andes, from the desert areas there.
00:19:13
Speaker
And I also studied some mummies in Korea and Asia, so we really are working worldwide on mummies and making our analysis there.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah, these are all really fascinating topics, which I will surely get back to in future episodes. But I was wondering, with the retreating glaciers of the Alps and worldwide, do you think it's only a matter of time until another Ötzi will be discovered? Or is it more a combination of lucky coincidences, thanks to the specific terrain features on the Tiesnjoch mountain, for example?
00:19:54
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. It was a big luck that the mummy of the Iceman was preserved of Earthsea because he was in the glacier, but he was also, let's say, lying in a stone mold. So that's why he was not carried away with the glacier that are usually moving and that also destroying the bodies. This was a big coincidence that he preserved for such a long time.
00:20:23
Speaker
I think there's a quite high chance that we find additional mummies or other findings from earlier periods in the mountains now with the glaciers that are melting away. But I would really not expect to have such other mummy like the Iceman that is showing up in the mountains. Maybe we find some bodies from earlier time periods.
00:20:50
Speaker
of a more recent time period, let's say, also sometimes we find mummies from the first world war, because there were some big wars going on in the mountains and sometimes you find those bodies mummified. It would be great to have more mummies from the ice from that time period that are similar to at sea. And there is maybe a higher chance, but it's not something that we can really expect.
00:21:18
Speaker
Yeah, we were hoping in the Bernese mountain at the Schniederoch that maybe a mummy would come out, but unfortunately not, yes. Yeah, this is what we also expected, the so-called Schniedi that could show up because they found these other pieces.
00:21:38
Speaker
But that's a problem that you cannot really tell whether there will be also a mummy. But it would be great to have another mummy that we could compare to the Iceman.
00:21:50
Speaker
After all the different analysis, which I will only be able to highlight some in these episodes, is there anything new you expect to soon find out about
Future Research Directions
00:22:01
Speaker
Ötzi? For example, are there new analysis techniques currently being developed which you would like to test on this mummy? Yeah, let's say the progress in the methodology is really enormous over the last years.
00:22:17
Speaker
So we are now able to, for example, with this genetic analysis with this new sequencing technologies to get much more information out of the samples. So that's why we were able to reconstruct the diet in his stomach. And the next step is now what we're working on together here with my colleagues on the microbiome of the Iceman to try to reconstruct the composition of the bacteria that lived inside the Iceman's stomach and intestines.
00:22:46
Speaker
and then to compare it to modern day people to see how this has changed over time because now we know this is very important for our health and also for our diet, how this is composed. And I think also in other areas like protein research or lipid research, there will be a big progress in the next years. Maybe we can much more learn about also this part of his body because now we are more focusing on the genetic information
00:23:15
Speaker
So we did some also lipid research and protein research, but mainly to confirm what he ate and what he had in his stomach. But I think we can also learn about a lot how he's maybe reacted to diseases. How was his immune response? Which enzymes were active in his body and so on. And I think there will be, I expect there will be some more progress in the next years. And that's why the research never comes to an end because
00:23:45
Speaker
The methods are developing, there are new technologies coming up that we maybe don't know now, and then we can apply them to the MAMI because it's so exceptionally well-preserved that it allows us to do this fantastic research.
00:24:00
Speaker
And also maybe in the spirit of his diet, I just have to ask you because I was wondering it myself when I was visiting the museum, if we could reanimate Ötzi for let's say one minute and of course be able to communicate with him. What would you like to ask him? I would like to ask him
00:24:24
Speaker
First thing I would like to ask him, what is your real name? Because we just know him as Ertze or Iceman, or the man from the Ice, but we never know his real name, because there's no way to find it out. And also, I would like to understand what kind of person he was, because we also don't know anything about his type of character, about his personality. I think most people assume he was a nice guy, walking around in the mountains, then was shot.
00:24:53
Speaker
from behind, but maybe, I don't know, maybe he was a mean guy and he deserved to being shot and so on. And for sure, a bit to learn about his life, also how he felt, because we know he had a lot of health issues. But did they really bother him, for example, or was it just something that everybody had at this time? And maybe it was just that he had from time to time some pain or problems. And but it was not really that he was not really suffering from it. I would assume that it was a bit
00:25:21
Speaker
normal that he had some issues, but he was probably not really suffering from it and really felt sick because otherwise, why was he still possible to walk up in the high mountains? We found already quite advanced age when he was about 40 to 50 years old at that time. So I think he was still quite fit, had some issues like we all have in this age. But maybe he was not really feeling sick and old.
00:25:51
Speaker
as it's sometimes assumed.
00:26:02
Speaker
Alright, that was it for the first episode about the Iceman Utsi. I hope I was able to highlight that, thanks to continuously improved investigation methods, even now, 30 years after his discovery, spectacular findings come to light.
00:26:23
Speaker
One of the most spectacular to date has to be the arrowhead in his left shoulder, which suddenly turned a prehistoric hiking accident into a murder and one of the oldest criminal cases in the world.
Conclusion and Next Episode Preview
00:26:40
Speaker
Remember, you can follow the podcast also on Instagram, where you will find some pictures of this frozen mummy. I hope you will tune in next episode, where we will focus on the different equipment Ötzi carried with him to survive in the high mountains, and also the possible explanation for the tattoos found all over his body.