Ötzi the Iceman's clothing
Twenty-five years ago this week, two German tourists stumbled upon what they thought was a recently deceased mountaineer preserved in ice in the Austrian / Italian Alps. Instead, what they found turned out to be a Copper Age man, estimated to be 5300 years old. He was given the nickname Ötzi the Iceman, after the Alps where he was discovered.
Now, thanks to advances in molecular biology and paleogenetics, Niall O'Sullivan, formerly from the University College Dublin, has finally unravelled the secrets of Ötzi's wardrobe. It turns out Ötzi was sporting fashions made out of domesticated sheep, goat, and cattle. His hat was made of wild brown bear and his quiver was made of roe deer. These clues, along with other scientific discoveries made about Ötzi, are giving us a clearer picture of who this man was and how he lived.
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