The surprising last meal of Ötzi, the ice man who lived in Europe more than 5000 years ago

What did the inhabitants of Europe eat more than 50 centuries ago?

For the first time, scientists have studied in detail what was in the stomach of Oetzi, the ice man. .300 years .

The last meal of Ötzi revealed a diet with very high fat content, as well as some types of meat, cereals, and to the surprise of scientists, ferns

The Mummy was discovered in the Italian Alps in 1991 by German tourists and is the oldest preserved in the known ice.

More than two decades later from the discovery, Ötzi 's stomach reveals what were the eating habits of Europeans at the copper age.

But why was it so long to study the stomach of Ötzi?

Scientists could not find the stomach that during the natural process of mummification, had moved upward .

The stomach was localized through the performance of new CT scans

"The material of the stomach was, compared to samples of the small intestine badyzed previously, extraordinarily well preserved, "said Frank Maixner, of the Eurac Institute of Mummy Research in Bolzano, Italy, lead author of the new study.

The stomach contained large amounts of lipid biomolecules, "which opened up new methodological possibilities to answer our questions about the diet of Ötzi."

Fat and meat

The last meal of the ice cream man was very rich in fat and included animals such as ibex ( a type of goat ) and the red deer .

In the stomach of the mummy was also found aron remains of a cereal called spelled and traces of a toxic fern.

The percentage of fat was 50% much higher than the average of 10% in a modern diet.

"At the altitude where the ice man has hunted, you need a diet that gives you a lot of energy," Maixner said. "The best way to achieve this is to eat fat, it will give you the energy to survive a hostile climate."

The badysis revealed that the main source of fat was the fatty tissue of ibex and that about half of the contents of the stomach came from fat fat

. It was a balanced blend of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. But surprises the high-fat content that he ingested "says Maixner

. The food of Ötzi was then nutritious, but probably not appetizing at all.

"We're talking about goat fat and it's hard imagine the taste, although it certainly does not compare to what we eat today," said the researcher.

"And considering that there was no salt to flavor, surely the meat, all the fat and other components had an unpleasant taste."

Fern toxic

The presence of toxic fern particles in the stomach of Ötzi "is more difficult to explain."

Maixner and his colleagues believe that perhaps the ice man used fern as medicine for intestinal problems related to parasites that had already been found in his gut

Another possibility is that he used fern leaves for Researchers Now Expect to Perform Further Analyzes to Reconstitute the Former Ice Man Microbiota

The Violent Death

Ötzi Was About 45 Years Old and Measured 1 [19659017] 60 meters when he died violently

L & # 3 9, ice man had a deep cut in the hand and an arrow wound whose tip was found under the right armpit.

When he was found, the mummy wore a goat skin and a hat and, next to it, a copper ax and a quiver full of arrows.