Otzi the Iceman , the 5300 - year - old fixed body hear in the Alps in 1991 , was thought to be a prehistoric slaying victim . But a revolutionary map of his property overturns that hypothesis , suggesting his “ execution ” scene is really a ceremonial entombment .
old written report of the cause of Otzi ’s decease have focus on just his consistency . In closing off , the corpse tells a convincing story : he was shoot in the berm with an pointer , and this lesion likely was the causa of his expiry . Considering he died prone and alone in an apart mountain pass luxuriously in the Alps , the explanation seems decipherable : somebody buck him far from his home and left him to choke .
But a new study led by Alessandro Vanzetti of the University of Rome , La Sapienza , propose a radically different interpretation . They made a spacial map of the various belongings he apparently discarded as he succumbed to his combat injury – these belongings admit “ a bull axe , dagger , quiver , back pack , birch - barque container , and an unfinished curtain call . ” The map revealed these possessions were n’t just scattered indiscriminately but instead carefully organized a few meters aside from Otzi ’s final resting stead . Since it would n’t make much sense for a dying serviceman to painstakingly lay his now useless belonging and then stagger five time away to die , Vanzetti and his team believe this is evidence of a ceremonial inhumation by Otzi ’s people .
This possibility would also account for other mystery about Otzi . Analyses of his digestive system showed he consume his last meal in April , but pollen in the ice around his body dates his comer on the mountain around August or September . This can be explained if Otzi died in the bound but his people had to wait until late summer for the methamphetamine to thaw enough to make sepulture in the mountains possible . It also answer for for why he had an unfinished arc with him , which is a funnily useless thing for a survive traveler to take with him on a dangerous mountain itinerary .
[ ancientness JournalviaScienceNOW ]
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