ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´

Some archaeologists hailed it as the find of the century – a man born
more than 4000 years ago, complete with skin and internal organs, who had
been preserved in a glacier wedged between Italy and Austria. The discovery
offered a unique opportunity to learn more about ancient man, his lifestyle
and the world in which he lived.

But political wrangling over custody of the body kept scientists at
bay. It took up to Christmas for political relations to thaw, opening the
way for researchers to examine the man – nicknamed Otze (pronounced like
‘curtsy’ without the ‘c’) after the Otztaler Alpen mountains where he was
found.

On 19 September last year, two German hikers discovered a frozen corpse
in a remote Tyrolean mountain pass 3200 metres above sea level. Neither
Helmut Simon nor his wife, Erika, had any idea how long the body had been
entombed, assuming it to be a relic from the more recent past. They notified
the manager of the nearest refuge hut on the Alpine peak of Finail who was
blase about the find – a month earlier, hikers discovered the remains of
a couple missing since 1934.

It was only when other climbers inspected the corpse did the realisation
dawn that something unusual had thawed out of the Similaun glacier. Aware
that the tools around the man were out of the ordinary, the climbers summoned
Rainer Henn, a forensic scientist from Innsbruck University.

Henn recognised the treasure before him. After repacking it in ice,
he despatched the body back to Innsbruck aboard a helicopter. Two days after
the discovery, at the university’s morgue, Konrad Spindler first set eyes
on the corpse. ‘I felt like (Howard) Carter when he found Tutankhamen,’
says Spindler, head of Innsbruck University’s institute of prehistory and
head of the archaeological investigation of Otze’s possessions.

Within a week, Spindler and colleagues announced that the body was the
most ancient ever discovered in ice. The man, it seemed, was from the Bronze
Age of around 2000 BC, and would throw new light on how people lived at
a time from which no written records have survived.

Archaeologists have unearthed and studied hundreds of skeletons of Bronze
Age antiquity, but most have come from graves. These give detailed pictures
of burial rituals of the time but only a glimpse of what life itself was
like. Otze, by contrast, appears not to have been buried deliberately. Not
only his body, including skin and organs, are in good condition, but so
are the artefacts that surrounded him. Uniquely for objects of their age,
the wooden handles of his tools are still intact.

The archaeologist’s excitement was not shared by all. The Austrian announcement
prompted a dispute with Italian officials who claimed that because the corpse
had been found on Italian territory it belonged to them. They also argued
that the way scientists in Innsbruck had treated the corpse would expose
it to attack by microorganisms which could accelerate its decomposition.

The scientists at Innsbruck were initially unsure about how to preserve
the body and solicited advice from around the world. The consensus was to
replicate conditions in the glacier that had preserved Otze. ‘We keep it
at between zero and -6 °C and in as near to 100 per cent humidity as
we can get it,’ says Werner Platzer, professor of anatomy at the University
of Innsbruck and head of investigations into Otze’s body.

The dispute was finally resolved in an agreement signed just before
Christmas between the University of Innsbruck and the government of South
Tyrol, a semi-autonomous region of northern Italy. Archaeologists appointed
by the Italians were invited to inspect the corpse and reported that the
Austrian measures were adequate. ‘Now, he’s clean. The danger of contamination
is passed,’ says Platzer.

‘I’ve seen the body twice and saw no trace of fungus,’ says Torstein
Sjovold, head of the Osteological Research Laboratory at the University
of Stockholm. Sjovold is a key member of the 60-strong team of scientists
recruited by Platzer from across Europe. On the Italian authority’s claim
that Otze belongs to them, the Austrians compromised. ‘The agreement stipulates
that the body will stay at Innsbruck for the duration of the research programme,
which will involve at least four years’ work,’ says Platzer. After this,
the corpse could be returned to Italy.

With the political dispute behind them, Platzer and Spindler are convening
meetings this month to finalise a comprehensive list of studies to be performed
both on Otze’s body and belongings .

Platzer is keen to stress that the body will not to be dismembered in
the name of scientific investigation. ‘A decade ago, it would have taken
up to 30 grams of tissue to allow archaeological determination of age. Now,
we need just 1 milligram for carbon dating,’ he says.

While they are alive, plants and animals acquire radioactive carbon-14
from the atmosphere, where the proportion of carbon-14 to carbon-12 is constant.
And, since carbon-14 decays at a known rate, the ratio of the two isotopes
in a specimen can be used to estimate its age.

The first results from carbon dating on Otze have already turned up
a surprise. Tests by scientists in Paris and Uppsala, Sweden, indicate that
the body is between 4600 and 4800 years old, considerably older than first
estimated. ‘Perhaps we have to say that he’s not early Bronze Age, but late
Neolithic . . . we must discuss this with other archaeologists and try and
place him historically,’ says Spindler.

Otze now faces a multitude of tests that will reveal his state of health
before he died and his age at death, presently estimated at between 20 and
40, his diet and social status. They may even reveal how he died, although
researchers are doubtful. ‘I think he lost his way and died of cold in a
blizzard or storm in the Alpine night, which can descend to temperatures
of -10 °C to -15 °C,’ says Spindler.

ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´s can be more sure about his diet. Investigators found animal
bones close to the corpse. They also discovered grain and dried fruit, including
small plums. Further clues are expected from the gut which is still relatively
well preserved. ‘We hope to find (gut) parasites, and to judge whether they’re
the same or different to the ones common today,’ says Platzer.

Don Brothwell of the Institute of Archaeology at University College
London, says the investigators are most likely to find food deposits in
the lower part of the intestinal tract, though something may be left in
the stomach. Brothwell has experience of such discoveries. He coordinated
biological investigation of the Lindow Man, a corpse dating back to Roman
times, found in Lindow Moss, a bog in Cheshire, England.

‘We have a knowledge of carbonised plant remains – it might tell us
about the mixtures of food the man ate. If pollen’s there, it might tell
us at what time of year the man died,’ says Brothwell. Cereals such as rye,
wheat and barley are easy to distinguish; green leafy foods are more difficult.
If the man ate meat, the animal might be identified by hairs which pass
through the gut, he says.

There may also be wider clues about Otze from hair and connective tissue
called collagen. Both accumulate minerals and so provide information about
diet. For example, hairs take months to grow and give a measure of dietary
change with trace element variation along their lengths, says Brothwell.
Although Otze was bald when the German tourists found him, researchers from
Innsbruck found hair lying aroung the body.

The skeleton is expected to be particularly revealing. Like many skeletons
from this age, the teeth have been worn down. ‘By the age of 40 to 50, most
Bronze Age people had very worn teeth – they had to chew coarse food, from
raw meat to wholemeal breads. Their breads often contained stony material
from the querns in which the grain was ground,’ says Brothwell.

Otze’s skeleton could also betray the extent of pollution in his day.
Lead, for example, is not discharged from the body, but accumulates. ‘Because
of different pollution problems today, we might find different concentrations
of lead in (the body) than in us,’ says Sjovold.

But Sjovold is also interested in the lessons that the corpse may have
for archaeologists in general. He says it is easy to make assumptions about
height and stature simply from bone remains. ‘As soft tissue decays over
years, the skeleton collapses, and we don’t know whether this makes our
estimations of height from bone remains too high or too low.’ Otze, he says,
may reveal how skeletons collapse once bodies decay. ‘It could alter height
estimations of all skeletons.’

Investigations of bone and connective tissue could also reveal whether
the man suffered from diseases such as arthritis or osteoporosis. Already,
Platzer and colleagues are examining the skeleton using X-rays, in the form
of computer-aided tomography or CAT scans, to probe the body noninvasively.
They are building up three-dimensional images of Otze’s internal structures
and hope one day to reconstruct a replica of his face.

Other areas of research include gauging his immune status by examining
the remains of white blood cells which are still reasonably intact. ‘We
are looking for anything about his immune system so we can assess whether
the illnesses of today were prevalent then, or whether other illnesses were
common,’ said Platzer. ‘We will seek the remains of viruses, but we are
not very hopeful. We might find them, and bacteria, in the intestinal tract,’
he says.

The reseach programme will also focus on DNA. It may be possible, for
example, to trace Otze’s relationship to modern Europeans. ‘Whatever they
find, it’s not going to fill us in on the health of the entire ancient population,’
says Brothwell. ‘But it might show the extent to which our DNA has kept
its integrity.’ He adds: ‘You do get segments of DNA intact (in old bodies)
but there’s a lot of degradation. You can recognise little bits, but freeze-dried
(remains) might be the best of all yet.’

Brothwell hopes that the agreement signed last month by the Austrian
and Italian authorities, will see an end to fighting over Otze. ‘I hope
it doesn’t finish up as a great scrap. With Lindow, everyone slotted in
nicely. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of goodwill in this investigation.’
By the end of January, everyone will know if Brothwell’s hopes are likely
to be realised, and within the decade, we should know considerably more
about Otze, his life and his world.

* * *

TRAPPINGS TELL OF ANCIENT LIFESTYLE

Archaeological investigations of Otze’s clothes and belongings will
be made in parallel with the analyses of his body and its contents. To help
him in the task, Konrad Spindler at Innsbruck University has assembled a
team of archaeologists from across Europe.

Most of the surviving clothes and artefacts are undergoing investigation
and restoration at the Roman-Germanic Central Museum in Mainz, Germany.
Among Otze’s belongings are an axe with a metallic head, a dagger with a
flint blade, a fire-lighting device of flintstone and tinder, and a quiver
full of arrows. The original wooden handles of the tools are intact, as
are a leather bag which carried the flintstone and the leather belt from
which the tools hung.

Most archaeologists cited the axe as incontrovertible evidence that
Otze was from the Bronze Age. They had seen many like it – without their
handles – in Bronze Age graves. But Spindler says that metallurgical analyses
on the axe, performed just before Christmas, shows that it is 99 per cent
copper rather than bronze, further evidence that the frozen man came from
an age earlier than first thought.

Otze also carried a backpack built around a wooden frame. This and some
of his leather clothes have decayed into fragments that lay alongside the
corpse. His leather trousers are in good condition, packed with dried grass
for insulation. He also wore an elaborate threaded necklace from which hangs
a stone bead, that may have been a talisman.

‘He was obviously an experienced mountain climber. His clothes and his
belongings showed that he was well prepared for living days, even weeks,
on the mountains,’ says Spindler. The team at Mainz opened the quiver for
the first time just before Christmas. As earlier X-rays had shown, it contained
14 arrows, each one just under 1 metre long. The investigators also found
a bow that Otze was making before he died.

Perhaps the most intriguing find so far are Otze’s tattoos, the oldest
ever seen. They consist of four blue lines on his back and other marks on
his knees and ankles. The vegetable inks were either painted on or inscribed
with needles. Spindler suspects they were inscribed because archaeologists
have found small needles before in graves and suggested that they were used
for tattooing. Whether the markings carry social, magical or religious significance
is not clear.

From the wealth of evidence, the archaeologists hope to piece together
Otze’s last movements and, possibly, the purpose of his final journey. Trade
routes were opening across Europe and at least one bridged the two sides
of the Alps. Nevertheless, it may never be known whether Otze was an explorer,
a trader, or simply a hunter caught in