interesting read

[storch]

this month's edition of NG has a story about a 5300 year old murder mystery.  the story is not a new one to many but for the sake of those who may be interested but as of yet uninformed I will recap it briefly.

back in 1991 glacial melting in the alps on the border between italy and austria produced the frozen remains of a prehistoric alpine hunter.  this hapless frozen fellow has suffer many indignaties since his death and subsequent discovery.  he has been subjected to countless MRIs and probings, researchers have studied the contents of his digestive tract to determine what he ate, unloved european women have wanted to be artificillially inseminated with his sperm when his testicles and noodle were discovered a few meters from his body, the list of indiginities goes on and on.

it seems now that this iceman affectionately known as "otzi" to his keepers was actually murdered.  forensic investigation has found an arrowhead in the shoulderblade and experts conclude that a thoracic artey was severed by this projectile and that otzi simply bled out after crawling to a nearby rock outcropping which served to protect his remains for those six millenia.

forensic investigators have also determined that otzi was probably wealthy and a chieftan that was attacked by neolithic power players in order to eliminate him from tribal hierarchy and to make way for one of their number to gain control of the tribe.

I wonder if any of you knowledgable posters are better informed about this interesting story and the most recent unfolding of this murder for power theory?

[Dowding]

Saw a documentary by the BBC on it a few years ago. It was quite interesting, but I cannot remember any details past what you have already described.

[eagl]

Why are they sure it was murder?  Maybe it was an armed homeowner protecting his property?

Oh but that would imply that the noble savages thought being able to protect yourself was a good thing, and that just won't do.  So it definatly wasn't a justified killing and must have been murder.

[storch]

lol I have no idea how these experts formulated their opinion and came up with a conclusion of murder.  I'll re-read the story it's only four pages long and I sped through it.  they claimed that there were two shooters and that otzi showed cuts from blades as if parying blows with his arms.  they speculate that the perps pulled the shaft out and purposely left the arrowhead in.

I don't want to call junk science BS yet.  I think the global warming crowd should admit that this is a plus for receeding glaciers.  I hope they find more interesting stuff like this prior to the next cooling cycle.

[eagl]

You're right it's not right to automatically call it junk science, but I do wish they'd avoid the trap of framing their finds with their own social preconceptions.

Saying the dude died due to violent means or due to being shot is just as factual, and it still leaves the story behind his death open to their imagination and a subject of further investigation.  Proclaiming that it was murder makes the researchers look like ignorant fools and it automatically shuts off certain avenues of investigation because of course we already know the story, so why even continue the research?

[storch]

Originally posted by eagl
You're right it's not right to automatically call it junk science, but I do wish they'd avoid the trap of framing their finds with their own social preconceptions.

Saying the dude died due to violent means or due to being shot is just as factual, and it still leaves the story behind his death open to their imagination and a subject of further investigation.  Proclaiming that it was murder makes the researchers look like ignorant fools and it automatically shuts off certain avenues of investigation because of course we already know the story, so why even continue the research?

when I read about this find a few years back that is how his death was described, as a violent end.  in that story they were claiming tribal rivalry and the speculation was that he was struck by the arrow and ran off to die from his wound at a later date.

the current speculation is what I printed above.

I was hoping someone more closely associated with the mummy or someone more informed might shed greater light on the tale.

part of my family hailed from that region of italy/switzerland/austria

[eagl]

Maybe you're right.  Still, it does sound a bit like something the anti-gun lobby would come up with

"See, even thousands of years ago personal weapons were only used for murder!  If they had a ban on projectile weapons back then, this man would still be alive!"

I'm probably too cynical...

[storch]

that would make two of us as similar thoughts did occur me as well but I thought, naaaaaa that would too far fetched even for curval.  

[TalonX]

There is a good documentary out there about this discovery.   I didnt try, but I bet you could google it up.

Body was very well preserved, given the thousands of years.   That said, in some ways these finds produce a myriad of stories, each crafted to explain the find.

See the "Caption This" thread... Same idea  

[Ack-Ack]

Here are some theories into his death.

A CT scan revealed that Ötzi had what appeared to be an arrowhead lodged in one shoulder when he died, matching a small tear on his coat. The arrow shaft had been removed. He had a deep wound on the base of his thumb that cut down to the bone. An absence of scar tissue indicates that the injury occurred shortly before his death. He also had bruises and cuts on his hands, wrists, and chest. DNA analysis revealed traces of blood from four other people on his gear: one from his knife, two from the same arrowhead, and a fourth from his coat.

This may indicate that Ötzi was actually part of an armed raiding party, and had gotten into a skirmish, probably with a neighbouring tribe, and this skirmish had gone badly for the attackers.

 
The Ötzi memorial on the Similaun mountain, where Ötzi the Iceman was found, in the Ötztal Alps.The biological evidence suggests that he was out of his home territory. The DNA evidence suggests that he was assisted by companions who were also wounded. The repairs he had made to his clothing are very crude compared to the original stitching. The copper axe could not have been made by him alone. It would have required a concerted group tribal effort to mine, smelt and cast the copper axe head. This all shows foresight, planning and preparation on a large scale with a certain goal in mind.

He was wounded in the conflict, and (according to CT scan findings) probably died within several minutes due to massive blood loss, as a result of a flint arrowhead severing his left subclavian artery.

By looking at pollen in his gut and comparing it to modern samples it is possible to tell that he died in the springtime.


Ritual sacrifice
Before the latest evidence, it was speculated that Ötzi had been a victim of a ritual sacrifice, perhaps for being a chieftain. This explanation may have been inspired by theories previously advanced for the first millennium B.C. bodies recovered from peat bogs, such as the Tollund Man and the Lindow Man.


Weather
It has also been hypothesized that Ötzi was the victim of a storm caused by the Priora oscillation, a sudden cooling of the Earth's environment, as indicated by the surge of the nearby Priora Glacier.


Latest data
The Guardian newspaper reports "Frank Ruehli, of the University of Zurich, worked with scientists from Bolzano, [...] to construct a three-dimensional image of Otzi using high-resolution computer tomography", which would have been trickier just a few years before.

"Dr Ruehli found that an arrow had torn a hole in an artery beneath Otzi's left collarbone," an injury that would probably have killed him even with today's medicine. The blood loss led to a cardiac arrest. These findings were published online in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The iceman's mitochondrial DNA has been analyzed by Franco Rollo and his colleagues, and it was discovered that he had genetic markers associated with reduced fertility, which may conceivably have affected his social acceptance.

To me, the theory that he was part of a raiding party sounds more plausible as there weren't any indictations from the articles of clothing that he was part of a tribal hiearchy such as being a chieftan.


ack-ack

[storch]

yes that conflicts a bit with what was presented in the NG version by stephen s. hall.

where did that qoutation come from ack-ack?  I'd like to read a litttle further if possible.