Otzi the Iceman, the exceptionally well-preserved 5,300-year-old mummy discovered by hikers in the Otzal Alps on September 19th, 1991, is officially the world’s oldest known tattooed person. You might have assumed that to be the case considering he died around 3,250 B.C., but there was another candidate for the title: a South America mummy of …
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When the full genome of Otzi the Iceman’s mitochondrial DNA was mapped in 2008, researchers found that his subhaplogroup type matched no modern samples, that barring the existence of some rare isolated genetic strain of people in the Alps, his maternal line had gone extinct. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited from women, so the 2008 comparisons …
Otzi the Iceman never stops giving. The 5300-year-old mummy found embedded in the ice of the Ötztal Alps in 1991 has been an endless bounty of information about prehistoric man ever since. His latest gifts are red blood cells preserved in tissue around his arrow wound and hand laceration for more than 5000 years. Blood …
Researchers have analyzed Otzi the Iceman’s full nuclear genome sequence and discovered that he had Lyme disease. Otzi died 5300 years ago which makes his the earliest known human case of Lyme disease. This study confirmed the results of an earlier study which sequenced his mitochondrial genome and found that he has no contemporary descendants. …
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the discovery of Otzi the Iceman. On September 19, 1991, tourists Helmut and Erika Simon stumbled on a mummified corpse lying on his front embedded in the ice of the Ötztal Alps, just 100 yards inside the Italian border. At first authorities thought he was recently deceased and …
