Oetzi's Clothing Was Domesticated
Copper-Age Iceman Dressed in the Skins of Herd Animals, not Quarry
Sep 10, 2008
This is an enormous finding, as it greatly changes preconceived notions of how at least some Copper-Age Europeans lived.
Since Oetzi’s discovery, half-exposed in a melting Alpine glacier in 1991, the material source of the` Iceman`’s clothing has been in debate.
Many believed the leather and fur of the Iceman`s coat, leggings and moccasins came from game animals like red deer, or wild goat, but this most recent finding ends the speculation, and gives valuable insight into the life of this 5,300 year-old man.
The clothing that Oetzi wore in life now indicates that the Copper-Age European was a shepherd, and not a hunter-gatherer.
The research which allowed this determination to be made consisted of comparing proteins from hair samples taken from the mummy`s clothing with proteins from the hair of living animals, both wild and domestic.
The results showed conclusively that the proteins of the hair samples from the iceman’s clothing most closely match those of domesticated sheep and cattle.
MALDITOF Mass Spectrometry
Klaus Hollemeyer of Saarland University in Germany and colleagues used MALDITOF (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization) mass spectrometry to examine four samples of animal hair taking from the mummy`s clothing.
"Two samples from his coat, and a sample from his leggings, were assigned to sheep. The upper leather of his moccasins was made from cattle," Hollemeyer`s team published in the September issue of the journal Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry.
"A main advantage of this method is the high stability of hair proteins compared to the more labile DNA molecules," Hollemeyer told Discovery News.
"In archaeological samples, the long storage under suboptimal conditions often destroys the DNA structures, but keeps the structural hair proteins mainly conserved."
Oetzi Died of Unnatural Causes
The mummy, named Oetzi after the Oetztal Alps where he was found, has been the subject of extensive research, and much has already been discovered about how he died so many centuries ago.
A traumatic cerebral lesion found on his skull and an arrow head found in his left shoulder indicate that Oetzi died of unnatural causes.
His head injury may have been caused by his fall, but the arrow that pierced his shoulder, and severed his subclavian artery is clearer evidence that Oetzi was the victim of violence, and was most likely the cause of his death at the age of 45. Frank Rühli of the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and colleagues from the General Hospital in Bolzano, Italy used modern X-Ray technology to discover the cut to the artery in the Iceman`s shoulder.
The discovery that the famous Copper-Age European wore the clothes of a shepherd adds greatly to what’s already known about him, and allows researchers of the Iceman to paint a better picture of how Oetzi lived.
Sources
Rossella Lorenzi, “'Iceman' Oetzi's Clothes Suggest Shepherd Life”, Discovery News, Aug. 22, 2008
Wiley-Blackwell, “Oetzi The Iceman Dressed Like A Herdsman”, ScienceDaily, Aug. 21, 2008
John Roach, “Iceman Bled Out From Arrow Wound, X-Ray Scan Reveals”, National Geographic News, Jun. 7, 2007
Klaus Hollemeyer, Wolfgang Altmeyer, Elmar Heinzle, Christian Pitra, “Species identification of Oetzi's clothing with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry based on peptide pattern similarities of hair digests” (p 2751-2767), Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, Aug 21 2008
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