back to article 5,000-year-old 'ice man' was shot to death

The final days of Oetzi, the Copper Age hunter whose frozen body was found preserved in an Italian glacier in 1991, were about as rough as they come. New investigations by a research team from Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich and Bolzano, Italy conclude the world's oldest "ice mummy" probably suffered at least two separate …

COMMENTS

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  1. Dave Morris

    So...

    A meal of gruel followed by a sneak attack from behind... life's a bitch, then you die, I guess.

    I wonder if this guy was attacked so much because he sold a lot of defect weapons or something?

  2. Darryl

    Shooting, Bludgeoning, & (attempted) Stabbing

    Was the Mafia around 5000 years ago?

  3. Andy
    Heart

    At the risk...

    ...of killing the comedy with a "LOL awesome" post... err, LOL awesome?

    Moar like this please.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oetzi

    Dumping the umlauted Ötzi spelling? Why not spell it OATzi?

  5. E

    Nothing ever

    ...changed in Europe from 1945 through the previous 5000 years then!

  6. Dave Cheetham
    Paris Hilton

    Those who live by the sword

    He was found in posession of a knife and traces of residue on his body that suggested he was involved in the manufacturer of weapons. Sounds familiar with today's gang culture society? Oh, maybe not, todays gang members don't have the brains to manufacture as they dropped out of the education system.

    Paris, cause she knows all about mens bodies.

  7. Dr Patrick J R Harkin
    Black Helicopters

    S'obvious...

    This man was an arms manufacturer and was the last remaining piece of evidence proving that the claim the tribe in the next valley had WMD's was faked and he had to be silenced.

  8. Zornhau
    Thumb Down

    Not funny

    Good article, but the spoofed James Bond image is in poor taste. This fellow was a murder victim or a warrior, or both. His body deserves a little respect.

  9. P.Nutt

    I thought I was having a bad week!

    I guess some days its better to have just stayed in bed.

  10. brimful

    ID cards

    If only he had a friggin ID card, we could've help stop this crime.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    5000 years old...

    still not at the top of the NHS list to get an arrow removed...

  12. Neil

    Poor Guy

    There he was, innocently popping into the local Kentucky Fried Mammoth and he gets beat to death by some ice-age chavs.

  13. Pete

    Are they now going to re-name him...

    The iced man?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    17 years to find out the Cause of Death?!?

    The guys in CSI work it out within a few minutes!

    I bet they haven't even got any suspects, yet...

  15. Psmiffy

    Sounds like a case ...

    for the Cold Squad.

  16. Ray
    Linux

    and there are those...

    who wish for a return to a more simple period in humanity's existence. mobiles and lattes for me, please.

    penguins coz it probably was better for them in those days.

  17. Llanfair
    Happy

    Can we have a reconstruction?

    Preferably with Playmobil.

  18. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    And this is the paradise...

    ... the "turn off the lights, return to nature and be happy" greenies want us to live in?

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Extreme porn law in the copper age

    With my time machine I went back and found out that they had what we now recognise as "Extreme Porn Law". Basically the guy tried to draw sex pictures on the wall on his home. The result was the "bitch week" he endured that led to his death.

    He actually shouted something like "I didn't harm anybody! They were just drawn pictures I had fantasy about! I didn't harm anyone!!!"

    The IT angle is the time machine reference up above ;)

  20. Mountford D

    @Dave Morris

    So you found him on www.IceAgeEbay.com as well?

  21. Tim Spence
    Pirate

    PFY

    Sounds like a death at the hands of the PFY. Did they have bastard operators from hell 5,000 years ago?

  22. Simon Coyne
    Coat

    Surely a case for Lily Rush?

    Got to be the ultimate cold case

  23. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    blimey

    Are there any bases left to cover in this thread? It's like a masterclass in... referring to stuff.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    A bunch of muppets..not scientists.

    These are the people who had Oetzi for 10 years, scanned, prodded him and x-rayed him. Then (10 years later) someone realised he had a dirty great arrow head stuck in his shoulder.....THE EMBARRASSMENT.

    The funny fact is, the very first scans clearly showed an ARROWHEAD in his shoulder blade. The "scientists" were so ponderious and blundering in the first place, the politicians fought over whether he was Swiss, German or Itailian in the second place, how can we believe in this study?

    What a sad and disgraceful episode to a remarkable find.

    Paris - because Oetzi would have protected her in chihuahua lined fur coat.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is old news

    I thought they found the fatal arrow wound somewhere around 2001 -2002. It was certainly on telly at least 5 years ago.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Re: blimey

    Yes, there is at least 1 more base to cover.

    I think he was killed in revenge for crimes against the ear, specifically this criminal example of Euro-pop at its worst:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNsmiqmaEWo

  27. Tim

    Worth seeing, if you're down that way.

    I visited the museum where he resides a couple of years ago, & it's quite moving. They have his body in a small humidifed chamber, with subtle lighting, & you can view it through a small glass window.

    More interesting is the collection of artefacts recovered with the body: there are seeds in his clothing, food, tools & a partially-completed bow that he was presumably carrying and working on. When you see the stuff all laid out & the research work that's going on, it's clearly about much more than the man himself - there's lots of useful stuff about nature & life at the time that can be discovered.

  28. asdf
    Thumb Down

    RE: A bunch of muppets

    I agree totally. This is one unfortunate side effect of having a bunch of small nation states with different languages and cultures right next to each other. The EU will probably never be as tightly entertwined as states would be in a single large country. Still regardless of the geo political makeup there will always be muppets.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    @blimey

    One obvious meme that hasn't been done yet...

    http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/4872/howdoishoticemanau3.png

    [SFW].

  30. Anonymous John
    Coat

    @ blimey

    Yes.

    <Crimewatch theme tune>

    "Were you in the Pyrenees 5000 years ago? Did you see this man? Did you see the men who attacked him?

    If you did, please phone Crimestoppers at 0800 555111. Don't have nightmares, do sleep well"

  31. Dunstan Vavasour

    Final Resting Place

    Am I the only one who thinks that, once all the scientific information has been gathered, he should be given a decent burial?

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dubbing...

    You see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps!

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    I'm surprised

    They have not tracked the copper and it's minor elements to some particular source. No matter how well they may have smelted it, there would be some trace elements there that should make sourcing it possible. I want to know more.

    As far as burial is concerned...two ways of looking at that....his people at the time may have considered the way he went "decent". I don't think a 20k funeral in a steel vault would do anything but lead the destruction of the body that has endured all these years..

    The sheer amount of infighting as to "who he belongs to" just gets a "grow up".

  34. Ben
    Coat

    @ The anonymous coward bemoaning Ötzi being renamed

    You can't call him Oatzi because that's an Austrian breakfast cereal...

    Mine's the one with Raquel Welch's phone number in it.

  35. mike

    I personally loved

    the Bond shot. It made me laugh.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Had 99 problems

    You mean "At least 100", surely?

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    How so???

    "

    Related stories

    * DHS deploys undercar Kraken tentacle-bombs (19 January 2009)

    * Oz policewoman in topless mobile snap shocker (19 March 2007)

    * Sex android begats Armageddon machine (22 April 2005)

    "

  38. elderlybloke
    Linux

    Copper Age ???

    I know of the BRONZE age, but not of this Copper Age.

    Is this some new politically correct term ?

  39. /etc

    New findings

    @ Lee

    "I thought they found the fatal arrow wound somewhere around 2001 -2002. It was certainly on telly at least 5 years ago."

    Yes, but what's new is what the pathologists have been able to conclude *about* the wounds with further investigation:

    "We are now able to make the first assertions as to the age and chronology of the injuries," wrote Professor Andreas Nerlich, who [led] the study ..."

    They only look at the body very briefly every few years, so as not to cause it damage or contaminate it with bacteria, etc.

    @Neil

    "beat to death by some ice-age chavs"

    The Ice Age was long before this man's time. The last cold snap was the Younger Dryas:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas

    And mammoths were gone by the Mesolithic, as the climate warmed and arctic tundra gave way to woodland.

    This man's Neolithic - post the rise of farming (hence the cereal meal) - and lived only 5,000 years ago. He's late Neolithic at that - he's even got a copper tool, and metal residues in his hair from smelting.

  40. Austin Modine (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: Copper Age ???

    The Copper Age was basically a beta version of the Bronze Age.

    (Forgive me for using a Wikipedia link, but): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Age

    It's used to label more of a evolutionary period of cultural development where both stone and metal tools were used, rather than the revolutionary leap of the Bronze Age.

  41. Angus
    Joke

    Intensive Care Medicine Journal?

    I would have thought he might be a bit beyond even the most intensive of Intensive care.

  42. BioTube
    Unhappy

    Hate to be a pedant

    But "shoteth" doth not work, for thou wanted the past participle, "shot". The '(e)th' conjugation occureth only in the present tense, third person; the relevant form of this word is thus "shooteth". I think ye all for your suffering this poor pedant.

  43. Simon
    Thumb Up

    Classic

    The picture on this article made me lolcano

  44. g00p
    Coat

    @Not Funny

    ...come on, we have to move on. He would have wanted it this way.

    *HUGS ALL ROUND*

    (...thats actually me, giving an invisible person with a big white coat on a hug...:D )

  45. Matt Clary
    Paris Hilton

    dark humor

    @Zornhau, if 5000 years from now, someone can have a chuckle concerning my demise, I encourage it. If someone is even vaguely aware I existed 5000 years from now, I will be happy.

    And I loved the Bond pic, that's pretty damned funny.

    Paris because she, like our departed friend, has been penetrated multiple times.

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    You know what this means dont you?

    CSI - BC, still sucks to have been that man

  47. Reid Malenfant
    Happy

    Back to the Fussia

    @ Dunstan Vavasour

    "Am I the only one who thinks that, once all the scientific information has been gathered, he should be given a decent burial?"

    As opposed to what .... an indecent one?

    Seriously, what would be the point? Any issues concerning the possession (or otherwise) of his immortal soul was decided long ago (or not as the case may be) in this man's case .... and its not as though he has known relatives asking for his remains.

    Your comment reminds me somewhat of all the nonsensical (to my mind) law suits and clamour for the remains of prehistoric Native-Americans (North and South) from museums and research institutes in order to satisfy certain modern day politico-cultural/religious mores.

    I often find it curious (and sometimes illuminating), to reflect on the mindset of people who feel so confident as to assume that they have even the slightest idea of what any long-dead individual's thoughts or belief systems might have been - Let alone this strange desire to stand up for their posthumous 'rights'.

    Beyond mere statistical probability, we have grounds whatsoever for assuming anything at all with regard to his thoughts and beliefs. For all we know our frozen friend might have been an adherent of a thriving humanist cult, perhaps a lone atheist wandering rationally or maybe even the very first prophet to hear Allah's message to the faithful! We cant possibly know.

    I guess provided he's treated with at least a modicum of respect and descency and spared from any excess, the scientific commumnity will at least spare themselves from too much irrational ranting. And thats about it.

    If anyone were to find anything left of me in the dim and distant future, they're free to do with me as they please - because what could possibly concern me? ...... well apart from a spot of time travel or reanimation?

    Nah, I'll settle for an infinite number of alternative realities in a possible multi-verse - perhaps one of me there might get to meet an alternative Iceman and get to apologise for everything I've just said!

    Hmm, I guess he probably died intestate too? ..... bags I the bow and arrows!

  48. J
    Alien

    Still laughing

    That 007 (or 5007?) spoof cracked me up, thanks for that.

    @Final Resting Place

    It's a mummified dead body, it's not tired at all. I don't care one bit what will be done with my body after I'm dead either. Feed it to the pigs, I say.

  49. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Voluminious ego of Mr Malenfant

    Reid, you really are a self opinionated knobber.

    You seem to be an educated man, and seem to want to tell us just how clever you think you are.

    I have news for you, your opinions (very valued by yourself) are of little or no interest to us of some edification.

    You post very little of consequence ( i have had the vexation of stumbling across your self preening clamour before), your hypothesis of this (and other) subjects have (as always) been drawn around your own views on your obvious non religious, non cultural and athiestic lifestyle.

    You are not the only man of education on these forums, although you may think that you are, many of us are waiting for you to post anything of substance that isnt anfractuous in any way.

    How dare you try to reflect on others opinions and beliefs, you seem vainglorious basking in your own parsimonious lifestyle.

    Crawl back under your rock Mr Malenfant and spout your antithetical plebeian insiduous guff to the plant life and insects you may be able to impress.

    You also state the ice man died intestate,

    what have his testicles got to do with any of this, you pervert!

  50. Reid Malenfant

    You can't stop me.... you do know that?

    Oh, and I take it that you do know what you are don't you?

    I knew you just couldn't resist it!

    ..... see you at 7 numbnuts (its your turn to make the tea)!

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