The Committee to Nuke Elysium

Since the 2001 discovery of a stone point in the Iceman’s left shoulder, many scientists have assumed that someone shot and killed Ötzi with an arrow as he attempted to flee through a mountain pass after a disastrous fight. From this perspective, the Iceman preserves a brutal prehistoric moment in time.

But a new analysis of the distribution of Ötzi’s belongings around his body, published in the September issue of Antiquity, raises the possibility that he perished near kin living at low altitudes, who took him to the mountains for a final send-off as soon as the weather permitted.

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Archaeobotanist Klaus Oeggl of the University of Innsbruck, Austria, reported in 2000 that high concentrations of a binding material used in Ötzi’s equipment appeared not just near his body but on a nearby ridge that includes the burial platform proposed by Vanzetti’s team.

Oeggl agrees that warming and freezing cycles caused the Iceman’s body to move from an initial resting place on the ridge to the gully. But no compelling evidence demonstrates that stones on the ridge were placed there to form a burial platform, he says.

…The Iceman’s joints and spine display no dislocations that would have resulted from a downhill slide. Intact blood clots in his arrow wound would show damage if the body had been carted up the mountain, Zink adds.

If Zink is correct, warming and freezing cycles should have randomly spread out his belongings, Bondioli counters. Instead, a mathematical analysis of the position of artifacts recovered around Ötzi reveals two main clumps of items, one at the proposed stone platform and another in the gully where his body lay.

A backpack frame rested on the platform, trapped by a protruding rock. Clumps of human and animal hair, plant fragments, splinters of arrow shafts and an ax lay nearby.

Remains of a grass mat, regarded as an overcoat by many investigators, were found near Ötzi’s body. Vanzetti’s group suspects the mat was part of a funeral shroud.

Ötzi’s belongings include an unfinished wooden bow and arrow shafts lacking points, which make sense as burial offerings because a hunter could not have used them, the researchers add.