Scientists analyze Stone Age man's last meal
USA Today 26/10/2001
By James H. Dickson, Archaeology Today
Almost a decade has passed since the frozen body of a Stone Age man now called Ötzi was
discovered in the Ötztal Alps on the border between Italy and Austria, and science is
still revealing secrets and refining theories about the 5,000-year-old Iceman.
Discovered September 19, 1991, the corpse was draped over a boulder and equipped with
clothes (a bearskin hat, bark-fiber cape, jacket and leggings of goat- and deer-skin, a
loincloth and shoes) and gear (a fire-making kit, longbow, quiver of arrows, hafted copper
axe, birch-bark containers, and a backpack).
Only about 160 centimeters (5 feet, 3 inches) tall and about 46 years old, Ötzi has kept
scientists busy around the world. At the University of Glasgow, Scotland, a recently
completed microscopic analysis of a tiny sample of food residue extracted from Ötzi's
colon has shed new light on his diet, his state of health, and the season of his death.
Analysis of pollen in the residue revealed a variety of pollen types, including that of a
small tree called hop hornbeam. Much of the hornbeam pollen still contains its cellular
contents. Ötzi probably ingested this pollen in drinking water at a time when the tree
was in flower late spring to early summer. It had previously been supposed that he had
died during the autumn.
The food residue also contains the eggs of a parasite, a whipworm; and had the infestation
been bad, it could have been debilitating, causing diarrhea and even dysentery.
Bran fragments in the colon show Ötzi had eaten a primitive cereal called einkorn, as
well as some barley. The fineness of the bran suggests the grains were in the form of
bread rather than a coarsely ground gruel.
The analysis also revealed undigested meat fibers. Perhaps he had eaten Alpine ibex, since
a splinter from an ibex neck bone was found beside the body. Whatever the precise identity
of the meat, it is clear that he ate a wide variety of foodstuffs. In other words, Ötzi
was omnivorous, as we would expect of prehistoric eating habits.
Yet it was recently proposed, based on isotopic analyses of a single sample of Ötzi's
hair, that he may have been a vegetarian who chose plant foods over animal, or even a
vegan, who deliberately eschewed animal foods completely.
That isotopic values of the Iceman's hair are similar to those of modern vegans offers
little help in interpreting Ötzi's diet, since the isotopes studied (of carbon and
nitrogen) vary greatly in response to multiple environmental factors. The Iceman clearly
had a little meat with his bread.
END OF
REPORT
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