Many, many questions have been posted about Ötzi, the Ice Man. Here is what Dr. dig has had to say!

How did Otzi get his name?
Daniel, Web post

Why is Otzi the ice man's discovery important to the world?
Brandon, Web Post

Who Killed the Iceman?
Mary, Lynnfield, Massachusetts

Dr. dig responds:
A German couple hiking in the Alps in September 1991 suddenly spotted a naked human body trapped in the ice at an altitude of 10,500 feet. It turned out to be the world's oldest fully preserved body, dating to about 3300 B.C. Now known as Ötzi (after the Ötztaler Alps where it was found), the body was that of a dark-skinned man in his 40s, and only about 5-feet 2-inches tall.

Ötzi is the first prehistoric human ever found with his everyday clothing and equipment (most bodies are found in their graves, often with special garments and objects for the afterlife). Ötzi's belongings have provided us with an enormous amount of information and are a unique "time-capsule" of the kinds of objects made of organic materials that were of tremendous importance in prehistory. Normally, these types of finds decay long before archaeologists can reach them. What preserved Ötzi's possessions was the cold and ice.

Many types of wood and techniques of working with leather and grasses were used in the 70 objects found with Ötzi. They include a cape of woven grass; a bearskin cap; a goat-hide coat; leather leggings and loincloth; shoes with bearskin soles and deerskin uppers, filled with grass; an unfinished longbow, and a deerskin quiver containing 14 arrows (only two of which were finished); a backpack frame of hazel and larchwood; a copper axe with a wooden haft and leather bindings; a dagger with a flint blade and an ashwood shaft in a woven grass sheath; and some containers of sewn birchbark. Studies of his teeth and bones have shown that he spent his entire life within about 37 miles of the spot where he was found. His final meal seems to have been meat (probably wild goat and deer) with wheat, plums, and other plants.

Otzi got his modern name because he was found near the Similaun Glacier in the Otztaler Alps of the South Tyrol in Austria. He is also known as Similaun Man, or simply as "Iceman." At first, it was thought that Ötzi, also known as the Iceman, was a hunter who had been in poor health and who was overcome by tiredness on the mountain, perhaps after being caught by a fog or a blizzard. The growth-lines in his one surviving fingernail offer evidence that he suffered from some crippling illness at frequent intervals. He also had some fractured ribs (which were healing or had healed when he died), and some arthritis in different parts of his body.

Recent studies, however, have discovered what seems to be a stone arrowhead embedded in his left shoulder, and some cuts on his hands, wrist, and ribcage. In addition, traces of blood from four other people have been found on his clothes and weapons. These finds may indicate that he was involved in some violence, and was perhaps killed by enemies. If you would like to meet Ötzi yourself, face to face, he is on show -- through a window in a special freezer -- in Bolzano Museum, in northern Italy. There you can also see all his equipment and a lifesize reconstruction of how he would have looked in life.