preview

Iceman Murder Mystery Essay

Decent Essays
Open Document

The documentary Iceman Murder Mystery was about a stone age mummified human found in 1991 by hikers in the Italian Alps. Otzi the stone age human is about 5,300 years old and is the oldest human found still intact. The documentary is mostly surrounded by scientists finding out what kind of life this human had, how he died, and what his DNA looked like. Scientists only had 9 hours to go into the mummified remains and extract DNA, try to look at the murder weapon lodged in the iceman's shoulder, and look into his stomach without destroying the remains (Iceman Murder Mystery). They also looked at the items found on the iceman to see if that had any answers into the iceman's life. They found a shoe on him, a copper axe, a knife, and arrows that …show more content…

They found ibex and einkorn in his stomach which reveals that Otzi died during the beginning of agriculture. Scientist believe the Iceman was at the start of agriculture because einkorn was one of the first grains to be domesticated and farmed. His diet also had a lot of meat which also indicated he lived during the beginning of agriculture because he ate grains but the majority of his diet was still meat based. Otzi had a copper axe, bow and arrows, and soft hands indicating he was not a farmer but a hunter or shepardson with access to grains. This leads scientists to believe that Otzi was part of a small settlement that used agriculture but still had hunters to provide the majority of the food and Otzi was most likely part of the hunting group (Iceman Murder Mystery). Scientists were able to use the items found near the body and in the stomach to learn about his foodways because when he was murdered it was less than an hour since he had eaten therefore the food did not have the chance to digest past the stomach. Also, Otzi was only found with weapons for tools suggesting he was a

Get Access