Essay On Otzi Iceman

A lot of our knowledge of Ancient humans comes from the finding of the Ötzi iceman. In 1991 some hikers were walking through the Italian Alps and spotted what they believed was the body of a recent hiker who had lost their life battling tough weather conditions. Soon after the discovery both Erika and Helmut Simon realised they had just stubbled across a 5300 year old ancient human, who to this day has attracted a lot more interest to the ancient world. Due to the harsh climate of the Italian Alps it has immaculately preserved Ötzi’s skin, what he was carrying with him, and all 61 of his Tattoos which were at the time used for medicinal purposes. Also found with Ötzi, was a copper axe, a wooden bow and a dear skin quiver containing 14 advanced and unique arrows.

C-14 radiocarbon dating has allowed scientists to know that Ötzi lived around 3300 BC. This makes Ötzi a total of 45 years old which is a very old age considering the short life expectancy 5300 years ago. The finding of this ancient mummy shows how Chalcolithic European’s lived, ate, fought, survived, and died
It was only in 2001 that scientists used an X-ray to reveal that Ötzi had a flint arrowhead lodged in his left shoulder. It was also shown that the arrow had damaged the subclavian artery, meaning that he would have bled to death in a matter of minutes. It was also discovered that he had a head injury at around the same time as the arrow wound, which scientists believe was the reason that Ötzi died. There are still many questions in the present day that are still unknown to scientists. These questions include why didn’t Ötzi’s murderer take any of his equipment, including his copper axe which would have been of enormous value? Was there something stolen that we don’t know about? What was the killers motive revenge, jealousy, hierarchy, greed? Why was Ötzi on the glacier in the first