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This is surprising since conditions would still be harsh at this time in
the mountains, making the trip he was taking when he died quite peril-
ous. Above and below the hop hornbeam pollen, the researchers found
traces of pine pollen in Ötzi's digestive tract. Pine grows in higher eleva-
tions. What this indicates is that Ötzi was in the mountains for a while,
then descended—probably to a village—and then quickly climbed again,
where he died at 10,530 feet (3,210 m) above sea level. he research-
ers published their report, “The Reconstruction of the Last Itinerary
of 'Ötzi', the Neolithic Iceman, by Pollen Analyses from Sequentially
Sampled Gut Extracts,” in
Quaternary Science Reviews
in 2007.
In 2005, scientists discovered the cause of Ötzi's death. A few years
earlier, in 2001, Paul Gostner wheeled an X-ray machine to Ötzi's cham-
ber in the South Tyrol Museum. Gostner, who works at the Central Hos-
pital in Bolzano, Italy, discovered a stone arrowhead embedded in the
back of Iceman's left shoulder. Earlier X-ray scans had missed the small
object. The arrow shaft was not in Ötzi's body, nor had it been found
nearby. The fatality of the wound became evident in 2005, when Central
Hospital acquired an X-ray machine with higher resolution. Gostner
and other staff members of the hospital brought Ötzi in for a scan—it
was a rush job, otherwise Ötzi's body would quickly decompose. They
discovered that the arrowhead had gashed a large and important artery,
the subclavian artery, which carries blood to the arm. Such a serious
injury would have caused Ötzi to bleed to death in minutes.
The arrowhead was yet another important clue in archaeologists'
attempts to reconstruct the Iceman's final days. Somebody apparently
wanted Ötzi dead. The killer was a good shot and had no qualms about
shooting a person from behind. Perhaps Loy's controversial DNA find-
ings, which indicated Ötzi's involvement in a recent fight, are true. Sup-
porting this idea, one of Ötzi's thumbs had been severely cut, which
must have occurred soon before he died since the wound had not healed.
Ötzi may have been fleeing a pursuer, which would explain what he was
doing in the mountains in the hazardous and snowy springtime.
One theory, based on the pollen analysis, suggests that when Ötzi
returned from a trip to higher altitudes, he got into a dispute with some
people in the village. According to the isotope evidence coming from
the Iceman's bones and teeth, he was familiar with the area, so he would
have probably known the villagers—they may have even been relatives.
Ötzi retreated back into the mountains after the fight, only to die at the
hands of a skilled archer.
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