National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Iceman Wore Cattle, Sheep Hides; May Have Been a Herder


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The world's oldest intact mummy—pictured above at a museum in Bolzano, Italy—wore clothes made of sheep and cattle hide, according to an August 2008 study that challenges a previous belief that the Iceman wore bearskin.

Wearing hides of herd beasts suggest he lived in a pastoral-agricultural society, say the study authors, whose findings are based on data from a new type of laser-assisted chemical analysis.

Photograph from Copper Age/Getty