Was Ancient Alpine "Iceman" Killed in Battle?

Sarah Ives
for National Geographic News

October 30, 2003

In 1991, two Germans hiking in the Alps of northern Italy discovered the 5,200-year-old remains of a Copper Age man frozen in a glacier. The well-preserved corpse, dubbed "Ötzi the Iceman," was found with tools, arrows, and a knife.

Since then, scientists have speculated about how the 46-year-old male died, offering scenarios from hypothermia to ritual sacrifice.

Now a team of researchers has added another theory to the mix, suggesting that the Iceman died in battle.

Thomas Loy, an archaeologist at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, led the team that studied DNA samples gathered from the Iceman's weapons, tools, and clothing. Loy and his colleagues found that the samples contained blood from four individuals.

Blood on an arrow found with the Iceman came from two individuals. Blood on a knife blade carried by the Iceman belonged to a third individual. Loy also discovered blood from a fourth individual on the left side of the Iceman's goatskin coat. Loy says this suggests that the Iceman may have had an injured companion that he helped carry for some distance.

Using the information gathered from their DNA analysis together with forensic data on the wounds found on the Iceman's body, the researchers reconstructed Ötzi's final moments.

The Battle

Loy believes that the Iceman died in a boundary dispute with several individuals and that the Copper Age male received his first wound as early as 48 hours before his death.

According to Loy, the Iceman shot two different people with his arrow, each time managing to retrieve the arrow from his victim. The Iceman's success, however, was short-lived. He missed his last target, shattering his arrowshaft.

"He was attempting, before he died, to take apart the arrowhead from the broken arrowshaft and make one useable arrow," Loy wrote via e-mail.

The Iceman died before he could fix his weapon. He was shot in the back with an arrow and was also badly cut on one hand. Loy's reconstruction suggests the Iceman stacked his gear carefully on a nearby ledge, slumped over a rock, and died.

An Unlikely Scenario?

Other scientists remain unconvinced by this new theory. Johan Reinhard, a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence and expert on mummies and ritual sacrifice, believes that Loy's theory may have "too many coincidences," he said.

"I find it an unlikely scenario," Reinhard said. He asserts that a ritual death such as human sacrifice "better explains known facts."

Reinhard cites the quantity, quality, and placement of artifacts that the Iceman had with him as evidence that he could not have been fleeing a battle. The Iceman was found with well-made leather clothing, a finely-crafted copper axe, arrows, and a knife, among other items.

Additionally, the Iceman's grass-filled shoes made travel through the snow a slow process, according to Reinhard, who said he is also skeptical of the location of the body—the Iceman was found on the highest point of a pass.

Reinhard does believe that a fight could have been possible, but within the context of a ritual. "We know that people have been lured into places and killed. As an example, the Celts reportedly performed human sacrifice by shooting people in the back," he said.

Despite his skepticism, Reinhard said that new theories are important in studying the Iceman.

But, as James Dickson, an expert in botanical archaeology and paleo-ecology at the University of Glasgow, in Scotland, who studies the Iceman, said: "Our knowledge of the events immediately before [the Iceman's] death … is poor."

Loy acknowledges the need for continued research. "There's more to puzzle out here … more to discover about both his life and death," he wrote.