When a corpse is found at the scene of a crime, forensic experts examine the contents of its pockets, stomach, take a blood test, that is, collect the so-called "material evidence". But if the crime was quite many thousands of years ago, what then? But nothing! Almost everything is the same. But scientists are becoming interested persons in the investigation.
Finding the "ice man"
And it so happened that in 1991, on September 19, on the border between Austria and Italy, in the Tyrolean Alps, after the ice melted on the Similaun glacier at an altitude of 10,500 feet, a group of climbers discovered the body of an ancient man. It was later revealed that he lived about 5300 years ago. The Ice Man wore goat-skin shoes and a grass cape. A copper ax and a quiver filled with arrows were found nearby. Although a lot of time has passed since the death of the unfortunate, the mummy is well preserved. In fact, it has become an interesting find not only for historians, but also for … criminologists!
"Tyrolean Ice Man", or Ancient Tyrolean named Ötzi
Most of all, scientists were surprised by the excellent condition of the body. Due to the fact that Ötzi has been in the ice all this time, he looks better than the Egyptian mummies, which he is much older. For a long time, they decided where is the best place to study it. As a result, the mummy ended up in Germany, where they conducted a detailed study.
It turned out that he was small in height, one hundred sixty-five centimeters, weighed about fifty kilograms during his lifetime, was about forty-five years old, and had excellent health. But in 2011, due to the complete decoding of his genome, it turned out that he was predisposed to atherosclerosis and Lyme disease.
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Who is he? Cattle breeder or sorcerer?
Fifty strange tattoos were made on his skin, in an unusual way. With a knife, cuts were made on the skin, into which charcoal was later poured. There are several versions of who Ötzi was. Some think that he is a cattle breeder, others consider him a warrior, still others - a hunter, and still others - a coppersmith.
Some believed that perhaps Oetzi was a sorcerer during his lifetime. Then, thanks to the study of the remains of the ice man, it was possible to fill in a large number of gaps in information about the life of ancient people. All objects that were with him at the time of his death - clothes, tools, weapons - were studied in great detail.
The primitive Tyrolean wore a loincloth supported by a belt, as well as a shirt made of thin strips of leather. A fur hat and a sleeveless cape made of woven straw served as protection from the cold.
"They knew how to live beautifully even in the Stone Age!"
The Ice Man was well adapted to survive the harsh climate. In a pocket made of tanned calfskin there was a bone awl and a flint box made of tinder and a fragment of pyrite, as well as flint items: a small scraper, an awl and a sharp razor-like blade, as well as a staghorn plate. In the first aid kit, they found mushrooms with the properties of modern antibiotics.
He also had a vessel with coals covered with maple leaves. That is, he had everything necessary for life, and in a certain sense, even a life "with conveniences"!
A copper ax and a flint dagger …
Apparently, Oetzi was in clear danger. By the way, his copper ax caused a lot of speculation. It is known that this metal was first smelted in Anatolia between the 7th and 6th millennia BC. In Western Europe, copper products appeared only in the 3rd millennium BC. e. Knife blades made of metal were found in Italy, as well as in the south of France and in Spain.
And the weapons found with him prove that copper in the alpine mountains was known much earlier than it was supposed. That is, the metal spread both in Mediterranean countries and within the continent at the same time. But Otzi had only an ax of metal products. Apparently, by the time of his death, easily accessible ore sites were devastated and the metal in his area was in short supply.
When studying Ötzi, it was found that among the "material evidence" there are objects that, well, could not be together in any way, since they belonged to different eras. The clothes look quite the same: leather shoes insulated with grass, a bandage made of chamois, mountain goat and deer skins; shirt, belt, fur hat, gaiters, straw raincoat, grass mesh.
But the weapon causes a lot of controversy. For example, a scraper is an ancient Paleolithic, a flint knife with a handle made of wood and arrows belongs to the Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic (12 thousand years ago).
Frozen or killed?
A lot of controversy in scientific circles was caused by the question of the death of the ice man. The hypothesis that he simply froze to death in the mountains did not last long. The first to dispute the traditional version of death from the cold were the chief curator of the Archaeological Museum in Bolzano Eduard Wigl and the climber Aloe Pirpamer. Who found the mummy in the mountains. It turned out that Pierpamer found a knife in the mummy's hand, which then fell out of her when the body was removed from the ice. Later, Wigle found a deep wound received by Ötzi in hand-to-hand combat.
The criminologists got down to work, since the "murder of the Stone Age" was evident, and it was they who determined that Oetzi had a spinal injury, ribs and nose were broken, his right arm was crippled, and there were wounds and bruises all over his body.
Ötzi is a victim of a crime
At the moment, scientists think that Ötzi was the victim of an ancient crime. According to experts, the "Tyrolean Ice Man" was killed in a battle that lasted about two days. In addition, there was the blood of several people on his body and on the objects found next to him. In 2001, a researcher from Italy found that an arrowhead was stuck in Ötzi's shoulder.
Genetic testing in the service of forensic scientists
In 2008, the complete DNA sequence of the cellular mitochondria of the found mummy was revealed and it was found that it is absent in modern humans. This means that the people to which Oetzi belonged no longer exist at the present time.
And this is what his haplogroup says …
From the research it can be concluded that the ancestors and relatives of Ötzi were herders. Probably, it was they who, by immigrating, contributed to the expansion of agriculture beyond the territory of the Alps. Ötzi had a Y chromosome, which was passed from father to son and belonged to haplogroup G, rooted in the Middle East, from where, in fact, agriculture itself came to Europe.
So the "crime of the stone age" helped scientists a lot
Oetzi is now in the archeology museum in Bolzano as part of a permanent composition. The mummy is kept in a sterile glass box in which the appropriate humidity is constantly maintained.