Photos Final Resting Spot
It was suggested that the clothing came from red deer, goats and or even chamois, a goat-like animal native to the Alps. Finding that the mummy wore a coat and leggings of Neolithic sheep hair helps archaeologists understand the social and cultural background of the Iceman, according to Hollemeyer. Access to such animals "is an indication for a more progressive pastoral-agricultural society," Hollemeyer said. On the contrary, if his clothes had been "exclusively made from wild games, this would be a sign for a hunter-gatherer society with no access to domesticated species like sheep, goat or cattle," he said. The Oetzi mummy has been extensively studied since its discovery in 1991 in a melting glacier in the Oetztal Alps. It is now known that his body froze and mummified after a violent death at about age 45. The Iceman was shot with an arrow -- the head of which remained lodged in his shoulder -- that fatally severed his left subclavian artery. He also suffered a traumatic cerebral lesion, the consequence of a trauma from a blow or a fall onto the rocks. It's unclear which wound actually killed Oetzi. "I think the blow to the head is significant but not the ultimate cause of death. On the contrary, the rupture of the artery kills you very fast," Frank Rühli, of the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, told Discovery News. Rühli, a member of the Swiss-Itaian team who last year discovered the fatal lesion of a close-to-the-shoulder artery, found the new study on the mummy clothes very interesting. "It particularly shows how much information you can get out of such state-of-the-art methods. Also, it highlights that research on the Iceman is still helpful and will provide more interesting turns in the future," Rühli said. Related Links: Rossella Lorenzi's blog: Archaeorama |
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