The 4,000-Year-Old Man

By Philip Elmer-DeWitt

One day a long time ago, a young man bundled himself up in a weatherproof leather coat, shouldered a crude wooden backpack, grabbed a knife, a bow and an ax, and headed into the Tyrolean Alps, which run between Austria and Italy. Up high in the mountains, at about 3,200 m (10,500 ft.), something happened -- an accident, a violent blow -- that took his life and left him to be swallowed by the Similaun Glacier. There he lay, locked in a crevasse, buried, frozen, forgotten.

Now, 4,000 years later, he has turned up -- virtually intact and remarkably well preserved -- a messenger from the ancient past. Stumbled upon at the glacier's edge by a pair of German climbers, the mummified corpse was identified last week as a rare human specimen from the early Bronze Age, possibly the oldest ever found in Europe. Although hundreds of Bronze and Iron Age bodies have been found in the bogs of northwest Europe, the "Iceman from the Similaun," as he was dubbed by the Austrian press, is much better preserved. It was a find of "extraordinary scientific significance," says Professor Konrad Spindler at the University of Innsbruck, where the Iceman was flown for detailed study.

The discovery gives a glimpse into a murky period of European history. In the Bronze Age, central Europe was a relatively primitive place compared with the kingdoms of Egypt and the great city-states of Mesopotamia. The land was populated largely by preliterate farmers, living in small communities, who supported themselves with mixed agriculture and hunting. Without any written records, scientists trying to draw a picture of the ancient Europeans have had to rely on what they could discover from excavations. "We have lots of cemeteries and lots of settlements," says Peter Wells, director of the Center for Ancient Studies at the University of Minnesota. "But rarely do we get a glimpse of actual people using their artifacts in everyday life."

In that respect, the Iceman has already yielded a trove of detail. He was a 20- to 40-year-old man, about 160 cm (5 ft. 3 in.) tall, with tattoos in the shape of crosses and lines. The wear on his teeth suggests a diet of meat and stone-ground meal. (An analysis of his stomach contents may yield more information about his eating habits.) Well equipped for an Alpine trip, he wore a jacket of tanned leather stitched together with fine thongs. His leather boots were lined with hay to keep out the winter chill.

What was he doing in the mountains? He was probably not a hunter, since most of the deer, badgers and wild pigs would have been found in forests at lower altitudes. He may have been searching for gold and other precious metals. He could have been on the run, hiding from enemies in the treacherous mountain passes. Or, says Spindler, he may simply have been on his way to visit a friend in the next valley -- a trip disastrous for him but lucky for scientists 40 centuries in the future.

With reporting by Anne Constable/London and Angela Leuker/Vienna