In the News

What Killed the Iceman!

Two recent reports provided new information ab out what may have caused the death of the Iceman. The story of the Iceman is introduced in FOSS Human Body Science Stories as part of the Human Body Module. In September 1991 a German couple hiking in the Alps discovered his body poking out of the snow. Since then many scientists have tried to unravel the evidence to find how the Iceman ended up buried in the snow, how he died, how old he was, what he looked like, and more.

A report in Discover magazine in June 2001 described the analysis of his intestinal contents. Klaus Oeggle, a paleoethnobotanist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria found pollen from the hop hornbeam tree in the contents. This tree flowers in the spring and lives only at low altitudes. The pollen grains were intact. Pollen degrades rapidly when exposed to the air, so Oeggle suggests that the Iceman may have died in spring or early summer. Skin analysis also supports this idea since it appears that the body must have laid in a pool of water for several weeks before it was frozen.

A June 16, 2001, article in several newspapers relates how an X ray revealed a flint arrowhead in the left side of the Iceman's chest. He probably suffered for a few hours before being shot and eventually died of intenal bleeding and possibly paralysis.

You might encourage your students to find updated research and ideas about the Iceman. As one scientist suggests with this new evidence, "The story needs to be rewritten."