Ice Man: the last (hearty) meal of Ötzi before being murdered

Barely two hours before his murder, about 5,300 years ago, Ötzi, nicknamed "Ice Man", had a hearty meal: traces of ibex and deer meat were found in his stomach. red, wheat cereals and, oddly enough, poison fern

Ötzi was found buried under a layer of ice on 19 September 1991 at an altitude of 3,210 meters in Val Senales, Italy. Its existence was revealed by the significant melting of the glacier. The man seems to have been pierced by an arrow from top to bottom, unchecked in his back at a distance of 30 to 40 meters. A recent badysis of the mummy now reveals that "the last meal of the Ice Man" was a very high fat meal.

" Using a complementary multi-omic approach combined with microscopy, we have reconstituted the last meal of the Ice Man, showing that he had a remarkably high proportion of fat in his diet, supplemented with wild meat of ibex and red deer and with traces of poison fern ", Says Frank Maixner, of the Euracum Research Institute for Mummy Studies in Bolzano, Italy.

" The high altitude and cold environment is particularly difficult for human physiology and requires a optimal nutrient intake to prevent rapid starvation and energy loss "said Albert Zink, who participated in the study. " The Ice Man seemed to have been fully aware that fat is an excellent source of energy ". The badysis also indicated that there was no way of knowing whether the wild meat was eaten fresh or dried.

The presence of toxic fern particles, on the other hand, is more difficult to explain. The researchers believe that it is possible that the Ice Man suffered from intestinal problems, and that he took fern as a medicine. It is also possible that the leaves of the fern were used to wrap the food. Toxic spores left on the food would then have been ingested, involuntarily.

You will find all the details of this study in the journal Current Biology.

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