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00:01Frozen for more than 5,000 years on a remote mountain pass,
00:06and now preserved for the ages in a refrigerated tomb.
00:12He is the Iceman, a frozen relic from the Stone Age,
00:17the oldest intact human body ever found.
00:21He's a messenger from the past bearing secrets of how humans lived
00:26nearly 1,000 years before the pyramids.
00:31He is also a homicide waiting to be solved.
00:36Who was he, and who shot an arrow into his back?
00:44Whoever shot him went up and pulled the arrow shaft out of his back.
00:50Why would you do that? Why would you take the arrow away?
00:53Was it warfare or murder?
00:58Now, a rare and dangerous procedure leads to some startlingly fresh clues.
01:05A piece of bone, a copper axe, and a last meal surprise the experts.
01:12As they come closer to understanding our ancient past,
01:17and to solving the Iceman murder mystery.
01:21Right now, on this NOVA National Geographic Special.
01:40Major funding for NOVA is provided by the following.
01:46David H. Koch.
01:51And...
01:53Discovering New Knowledge.
01:58HHMI.
02:02And the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
02:05And by PBS viewers like you. Thank you.
02:08Additional funding is provided by Millicent Bell through the Millicent and Eugene Bell Foundation.
02:19On a remote mountainside, high in the European Alps,
02:23a man makes his way through the thin mountain air.
02:29It is a desolate place.
02:35But he is not alone.
02:39On this day, 3,000 years before the birth of Christ,
02:43this man's life will end in a violent death.
03:05But his body will remain on the mountain for over 5,000 years.
03:15September 1991.
03:17Two hikers climbing in the Italian Alps wander off the trail
03:21and stumble across a gruesome sight.
03:27The head and shoulders of a man emerging from the ice.
03:35At first, the pathologist responding to the scene assumes it's simply the remains of an unfortunate hiker.
03:42One of many lost to the Alps over the years.
03:47But this body looks different.
03:50It shows almost no signs of decomposition.
03:54Its skin and flesh appear to have been freeze-dried.
04:01Hands, feet, even eyeballs are still intact.
04:09The mountain air and ice had transformed this corpse into a mummy.
04:17As the recovery continues, some unusual items begin popping up.
04:23Bits of leather and handmade rope.
04:27And a knife with a flint blade.
04:33This was no ordinary hiker.
04:41Initial analysis of his gear suggests he was thousands of years old.
04:48The find causes a worldwide sensation.
04:53The press dubs him the Iceman, or Utsi, after the Utsal Mountains where he died.
05:00Eventually, carbon dating confirms that Utsi died 5,300 years ago.
05:08His were the oldest intact human remains ever recovered.
05:16What can they tell us about our own history?
05:20And about how this man died upon that mountain?
05:26For some reason, Utsi makes a fateful journey up this ridge, along this valley.
05:34All the way up, he goes from essentially about 1,000 feet to almost 11,000 feet.
05:42Why?
05:43At first, they suspect he was lost in a storm.
05:47But mounting evidence begins to suggest something else happened to the Iceman.
05:53Something more violent.
06:00Exactly what that was will likely be uncovered here, in Bolzano, Italy.
06:08Just 30 miles from the spot where he died,
06:11a multi-million dollar museum celebrates what could be the world's oldest open case of homicide.
06:21Utsi's mummified body is on display, carefully frozen in a custom-made crypt.
06:29Temperature, 20.3 degrees Fahrenheit.
06:33Relative humidity, 98%.
06:41Now, doctors in charge of the body are hoping to force a break in the ancient case
06:46by conducting a rare and dangerous procedure.
06:50They are letting the Iceman's body defrost.
06:57Scientists flock to Bolzano to get their hands and instruments on the 5,000-year-old corpse.
07:07They will be following fresh leads about the Iceman's death,
07:11but also his life at a key turning point in human civilization.
07:16They will have just nine hours to complete their investigations
07:21before the Iceman must be refrozen.
07:25Pathologist Eduard Egarter-Viegel is leading an operation that could be risky.
07:34One risk is that scientists who enter the room bring their bacteria and germs with them.
07:43Another risk is that we have no way of knowing if there are still living organisms in the mummy itself
07:48and if these would be reactivated in the defrosting.
07:56If the body is harmed by the defrosting, the loss would be profound.
08:02Scholars depend on this one corpse to shed light on a crucial time in human history.
08:11Butzi is unique.
08:13He's from the very end of the Stone Age, a time when humans still used stone tools,
08:19but before they had mastered the art of smelting metal.
08:24Struck down in mid-stride, he provides a glimpse of what life was like in those times
08:30with some surprising twists.
08:34One find, a man in the ice, opened up a whole new window on the ancient world that was never
08:42there before.
08:435,000 years ago, on the European continent is a time before countries, before kings,
08:51even before the introduction of the wheel.
08:54In these alpine valleys, some people are living in small settlements,
09:00just beginning to grow crops like wheat and barley,
09:05and to raise goat, sheep and cattle.
09:09But others are nomadic hunters, still depending on wild game for survival.
09:17Population is increasing.
09:19And so is competition between those hunters and early farmers.
09:25We now know that with increasing population,
09:31there are more people contesting boundaries.
09:35This is the first time we're actually farming.
09:40So people can now fight over a plot of land and over the resources on it.
09:54Utsi's gear, well preserved by the icy glacier, provides a critical insight into prehistoric culture.
10:04Everything was placed in that refrigerator and the door was sealed.
10:08And we can open up that window in time, 5,300 years later,
10:12and everything was almost just as he left it.
10:16In fact, when they found the iceman, he was still wearing one of his shoes.
10:23The artifacts are now in the Bolzano Museum,
10:27where Patrick Hunt is joined by Ana Luisa Pedrotti of nearby Trento University
10:32to carefully examine each item.
10:37Searching for clues not only about Utsi's culture, but about his last day alive.
10:48Why would he have been carrying these things with him at the time of his death?
10:54The shoe is one of the earliest examples of its kind, and surprisingly complex.
11:00You can just see here at least three different kinds of material.
11:06You see grass, you see skin, and you see cord.
11:13It's unlikely a man from the Stone Age would wear shoes all the time.
11:19But if he knew he was going to cross the rocky slopes and glaciers of the Alps,
11:26shoes like this would be important to pack along.
11:30The artifacts not only provide personal details about the man who carried them,
11:36they prove that Stone Age designs could be surprisingly sophisticated.
11:42His backpack, with its wooden frame, seems almost modern.
11:47A leather pouch was possibly tied around his waist like a fanny pack.
11:55Chunks of tree fungus, thought to have medicinal powers, served as a first aid kit.
12:03Maple leaves were used to carry hot embers for starting fires.
12:11Otsi's culture knew the use of every possible plant and stone and wood.
12:19They used the optimal material.
12:24But venturing into the mountains beyond his settlement could be dangerous.
12:29Wolves, wild boar, and bears were common.
12:34Clashes between settlements and hunters were also possible.
12:39So Otsi carried weapons.
12:44Along with his knife, he had a bow and arrows.
12:49His quiver, the oldest ever found, contained carefully crafted wooden arrows.
12:56With flint arrowheads chipped to a razor's edge and glued on with pitch made from the sap of a birch
13:03tree.
13:05The feathers on the shafts are also carefully attached to stabilize the arrow in flight.
13:12But for some mysterious reason, the bow and arrows were not ready to use.
13:20If you count the number of arrows here, easily over a dozen, most of the arrows are completely unusable at
13:28this time.
13:29Why do we have so many arrows unfinished?
13:35This is a huge mystery.
13:36He was found with equipment that was not fully prepared.
13:40It's as if he were walking in the wilderness with an unloaded gun.
13:46I would say that Otsi is going to be in trouble.
13:51This is a serious flaw in his plan for survival.
13:55But he wasn't completely unarmed.
13:58He was carrying a weapon far advanced for his time.
14:01An axe made of copper.
14:04The one object that continues to draw our attention like a magnet is that copper axe.
14:14It's so intriguing because the technology required to make it is far beyond anything we've seen before.
14:24The Iceman's copper axe surprises archaeologists and forces a revision in the timeline of history.
14:34Before Otsi, scholars didn't think Alpine cultures had learned to smelt copper until about 2000 BC.
14:43But carbon dating shows that the Iceman's axe is far older than that.
14:52This means his people already knew how to heat copper rich rock up to 2000 degrees Fahrenheit.
14:59Hot enough to extract the metal from the ore.
15:05The discovery of the axe meant they were stepping out of the age of stone tools a thousand years before
15:13experts thought possible.
15:15To be that far ahead, so far back, this is simply incredible.
15:22This is one find that changes forever what we think about the past.
15:29The mind that can create that copper axe is practically and for all purposes the same mind that can create
15:39a computer.
15:40A circuit board.
15:42In other words, Otsi is us.
15:47For years after the Iceman was discovered in 1991, scholars believed he had frozen to death in an alpine storm.
15:57But how could someone so in tune with his environment get caught out in a storm?
16:06Experts searched for other clues to explain his death.
16:10The body was CT scanned and x-rayed.
16:14But all they saw was some broken bones.
16:17Nothing fatal.
16:19Then one day, ten years after the Iceman's discovery, Dr. Paul Gossner, a Bolzano radiologist, was studying images from the
16:29Iceman when he saw something that struck him as strange.
16:36It's this little white spot here.
16:39But you could also confuse it for a rib.
16:43It's hard to see right away, isn't it?
16:47As Gossner began to look again at the original x-rays, he saw something that didn't add up.
16:58So he had a CT scan image taken.
17:01And this time, there could be no doubt.
17:04There it was.
17:06Lodged in the Iceman's back, an arrowhead made of stone.
17:17That was a great surprise, since up until that time, we didn't know that he was shot.
17:27But did the arrow kill the Iceman?
17:31We know he was shot in the back, from slightly down below, with an arrow that penetrated his scapula, his
17:38shoulder blade.
17:45The CAT scans revealed that the arrowhead had, in fact, hit its mark.
17:51The arrowhead penetrated a subclavial artery, so that Otzi bled to death very, very quickly.
18:00Who killed the Iceman? And why?
18:04The desire to solve this ancient homicide drives researchers back to the body one more time.
18:15In the small operating room at the Bolzano Museum, an international team of nearly two dozen researchers has gathered for
18:23the chance to examine the mummy.
18:27One of their first objectives will be to see if they can get a look at the fatal arrowhead.
18:33Over two decades, scientists have learned a great deal about the Iceman.
18:38From his skeleton, they know he was about five feet two inches tall.
18:44Evidence of muscle development in his legs indicates a grueling routine of mountain heights.
18:52The softness of his hands suggests he was not a farmer working the earth, but perhaps a hunter or a
18:59shepherd.
19:01While study of his bones reveals that he was in his 40s the day he died.
19:08Identifying marks include over 50 tattoos of unknown significance.
19:21Biological anthropologist Albert Zink is head of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman.
19:29Together with Dr. Egarter Wiegel, Zink is leading the procedure.
19:35We're all a little bit excited and also nervous because we have a lot to do.
19:41And we also have to be sure that the Iceman doesn't have any damage due to this investigation.
19:49After a night spent outside his freezer, Utzi is thawing nicely.
19:56As the mummy melts, he starts to sag.
20:03To prevent the body from completely falling apart, scientists place him in a special box.
20:12The box will allow them to move the body without damaging it and without altering the position of the limbs.
20:29You can see the mummy is well defrost.
20:34Tissue is soft.
20:36So I think that we can start now with the investigation.
20:44Body parts that were frozen now move.
21:04With just nine hours to conduct their investigations, each team must stick to a tight schedule.
21:16In order to gain access to his left shoulder and the arrowhead, doctors move quickly to flip Utzi face down.
21:26They hope the arrowhead may provide a clue to help solve one of the key mysteries of Utzi's death.
21:37Was he killed in a skirmish with another settlement or some hunters fighting over territory?
21:45Or was the arrowhead still in his back put there by one of his own?
21:51Perhaps a jealous rival from his clan.
21:55One clue supporting this idea is his copper axe.
22:00That axe was so advanced, some believe it marks Utzi as a man of great importance in his community.
22:09Stone carvings found in the valley below where he died prominently feature the exact same kind of axe.
22:18Suggesting that the weapon had great symbolic power.
22:24And that makes us wonder more about Otzi.
22:28Who was he? Why did he have this?
22:31What kind of status did he have in the culture?
22:35Zink and Edgar Vigel wonder whether the arrowhead might be able to provide other clues.
22:43So we really hope to get close to the arrowhead because the arrowhead is still inside the body and we
22:48never really saw the arrowhead.
22:50And so we really hope to get close to it and maybe even to see what's going on there.
22:56Guided by an endoscope, they are now within half an inch of the actual arrowhead.
23:04But their root is blocked by tissue.
23:09With minutes ticking by, Edgar Vigel has a key decision to make.
23:16So far they have used pre-existing access roots created long before the presence of the arrowhead was known.
23:25If Edgar Vigel gives the okay to cut the Iceman in a new place,
23:30they will surely be able to gain access to the Stone Age arrowhead.
23:35But this creates a dilemma.
23:38It's Edgar Vigel's mission to learn all he can about the mummy.
23:43But it's his duty to keep it from harm.
23:53The Iceman's body has become a big part of it.
23:55It has become a kind of protected landscape.
23:58An archaeological site older than Stonehenge.
24:02With distinct areas marked out for exploration over the years.
24:11So the Iceman is not just an extremely cold case.
24:15He's considered by the government to be a cultural treasure.
24:20That prevents a Garter Vigel from performing a true autopsy.
24:24The kind of procedure that might radically alter a human time capsule.
24:29That has remained intact for nearly two million days.
24:38A Garter Vigel and Zink have devoted much of their careers to studying this time traveler from the Stone Age.
24:45Now they visit the remote pass where Utzi met his fate.
24:50We see now in front of us this wall, the place the Iceman was found.
25:00Utzi was found just 100 yards from the border between Italy and Austria.
25:095,000 years ago, he climbed to this ridge and was killed.
25:17Here we are on the top of the mountain.
25:20And if you look down in the valley, we see that the distance is very, very long.
25:26There are more than 1,500 meters.
25:36So we can see here very well that here was the glacier and the glacier tends to move down.
25:41And normally that body would have been transported with the glacier down and destroyed completely.
25:50Most bodies lost in glaciers get buried in the river of ice
25:54and slowly glide down the mountain along with tons of stone and other debris,
26:00all grinding together.
26:03Alpine glaciers typically move about 100 feet per year.
26:09And after a few hundred years, most of the debris that gets caught up in them
26:14emerges at the bottom along the melting edge of the ice.
26:18But while the circumstances of Utzi's death appear extremely unlucky,
26:24in archeological terms, he couldn't have fallen in a better spot.
26:30The sun and wind dried his body out completely.
26:36Rocks on either side of him formed a small trench.
26:39This eventually filled in with 10 feet of snow and ice.
26:47Preventing the Iceman's body from being swept into the deadly frozen current
26:51that flowed all around it.
26:5450 feet to the right or left, and his body would have been ground to bits and lost forever.
27:02The mountain created and then protected the Iceman.
27:10Back in the operating room, a guard of Weigel and Zink have to decide whether they're going to cut into
27:16the mummy,
27:16risking permanent damage.
27:20Though investigators have known for a decade that Utzi was killed,
27:25no one has ever seen the actual murder weapon.
27:32It's the last piece of unexamined evidence remaining.
27:39The team going after the arrowhead is tantalizingly close.
27:50But there is no way to get through the tissue without doing damage to the mummy.
28:00A guard of Weigel decides to play it safe and move on without making a new incision.
28:10We want to make sure that Utzi is kept intact.
28:16Archaeologists have a tendency to alter the artifacts in a very destructive way.
28:22Once you excavate some sites, you can never go back and you can't correct your mistakes.
28:28You can't do it over again.
28:31Though the arrowhead is critical, it's not the only evidence in the case.
28:37The idea that Utzi was killed in a skirmish with a rival settlement or band of hunters seems to be
28:44supported by microscopic signs that he was on the run in the days leading up to his violent death.
28:52He's carrying those tiny clues in his intestine.
28:56Wherever you walk in late spring to early summer, there's going to be a lot of pollen in the air.
29:03The pollen is going to also be in his throat and in his food.
29:08At different elevations, different trees release their pollen.
29:13In this region, a tree called hornbeam dominates the lower elevations.
29:19While higher up the mountain, conifer forests cover the slopes.
29:24In Utzi's intestine, scientists find a layer of hornbeam pollen.
29:30On top of that, a layer of conifer.
29:33It's a clear indication he's moving up the mountain.
29:37Oddly enough, we believe he came back down again because there's another layer of hornbeam pollen on top of the
29:45conifer pollen.
29:46Which means he went up, for some reason came back down, and then went back up again to his death.
29:53What possesses a man to make such a journey unless, for life-threatening reasons, he has to move?
30:04And there is more forensic evidence that the Iceman was being pursued in the days leading up to his death.
30:12On his right hand, a deep cut slicing across the palm.
30:18Possibly the result of hand-to-hand combat involving a knife.
30:28So, has he been in a battle? Has he already been fighting for his life?
30:33There's some evidence that would lead to that interpretation.
30:39But this warlike scenario has one hitch.
30:43And it has to do with what must have been the Iceman's most prized possession.
30:49His axe.
30:52Why would the killers leave such a valuable object behind?
30:57It makes sense if Otzi is just a victim of a long-distance kill shot, where someone would shoot him,
31:06leave the arrow, leave the axe and run away.
31:12But the shaft of the fatal arrow was never found, suggesting the attacker got close enough to pull it from
31:19the Iceman's back.
31:21Anyone getting that close to the body would have been within reach of Otzi's copper axe.
31:29Why was the axe left by his body? A huge mystery.
31:36Surely people knew its value.
31:40Perhaps the killer left the axe and took the arrow to avoid being discovered.
31:47If you took his axe, you'd be identified. If you left your arrow shaft, you could be identified.
31:52So to leave the axe and take the arrow says that someone is exercising great caution.
32:00They're thinking this through.
32:03Possibly they don't want to be identified as Otzi's killer.
32:15In the search for more clues about Otzi's killer,
32:18it's time for a new group to have their turn with the body.
32:23This team will be looking for blood, specifically in Otzi's brain.
32:30On scans of Otzi's skull, there are clear signs of fracture.
32:35And in pictures of the shrunken but still intact brain, some areas appear darker than others,
32:42which could be either blood or rot.
32:46If it's blood, it's proof he suffered a blunt force trauma to the head just before dying.
32:55If you really could find an evidence for a bleeding, this would prove that this was an injury that happened
33:00during the process when he was dying.
33:02The bleeding just happens if you're still alive or maybe if you're in the process of dying.
33:09Pincers, threaded through holes drilled in Otzi's cranium years ago, snip samples of his brain.
33:26When analyzed in the lab, these dark clumps of brain matter test positive for blood.
33:34Confirming that Otzi suffered a blow to the head before he died.
33:39But how?
33:42Either he was finished off by his killer at close range.
33:48Or he hit his head on a rock after being struck by the arrow.
33:54Ultimately, the forensic evidence is inconclusive.
33:57But the blood in the brain confirms that his last moments were traumatic.
34:05All this analysis has taken time, and the body cannot remain defrosted much longer.
34:12With so much information about his death still inconclusive,
34:16scientists shift their focus to look for more clues about Otzi's life.
34:22The copper axe suggests he was a figure of some importance.
34:27But was he a farmer?
34:29A hunter?
34:31A shepherd?
34:34Why was he alone?
34:36Was he perhaps on the run?
34:40Unfortunately, the one vital organ that could possibly answer all these questions
34:44has been missing for 20 years.
34:50But recently, it has been found by the same radiologist who discovered the arrowhead.
34:59Over the years, Dr. Paul Gossner has seen thousands of images of the mummy's insides.
35:05But one day, while scanning the familiar images, an unexpected shape seemed to emerge.
35:16Here we have the esophagus, heart, lungs. See?
35:24And if you go further down, then you see an image that corresponds to that of an organ.
35:31A big, hollow organ.
35:35The big, hollow organ was something no one had noticed before.
35:40That is the man.
35:41The Iceman's stomach.
35:45How was it possible for everyone to miss something so basic as his stomach?
35:51The answer? Because it was not where it should have been.
35:56The stomach had moved.
36:00When the Iceman was found, his body was draped face down over a rock.
36:06For 50 centuries, he hugged that rock, pressed under tons of ice.
36:13His body, squeezed between the rock below and the ice above, pancaked.
36:22While the organs inside his body were preserved intact, some of them were squeezed out of place.
36:31The stomach usually sits in the upper abdomen.
36:36When a person stands, then the stomach moves down a bit.
36:41When a person lies on his stomach, then the stomach pushes up.
36:46When a person lies on his stomach and has a ton of ice on top of him, then the stomach
36:53is pushed up even further.
36:56You don't see the stomach because it's too far up.
36:59You don't see it.
37:01You don't see it.
37:02You don't see it.
37:03The team assembled to explore the stomach, first tries to reach it the usual way.
37:09Passing an endoscope in between the Iceman's teeth, through his mouth and down his throat.
37:22But the Iceman's body is too compressed.
37:25We cannot pass.
37:28We cannot pass.
37:31So the team takes a different route, through an existing incision in the abdomen.
37:39And here they find the stomach, almost in his chest.
37:45Just where Dr. Gossner predicted it would be.
37:49I think this is the stomach here.
37:52The stomach is not only there, it is full of food.
38:03Grain, fat, and meat.
38:12So much material from the stomach now.
38:17Initial analysis establishes the grain is a variety of wheat, called einkorn.
38:23Einkorn was one of the first grains cultivated by human beings.
38:28The meat is ibex, a kind of wild goat still roaming the Alps.
38:36This last meal confirms the Iceman lived at a turning point in history.
38:43He and his people were just beginning to farm, but they still depended on meat from wild game.
38:51Utsi himself may have been a hunter connected to a small farming community.
38:55However he made his living, he was well fed.
39:04After nine hours, Utsi is re-sewn, holes plugged, flaps put back in place.
39:17This one day has yielded 149 biological samples.
39:22Enough material to keep scientists busy for years to come.
39:27The most important of all could be the vials that may contain the Iceman's DNA.
39:39Techniques of salvaging and sequencing DNA have only recently improved enough to make it possible to get useful information from
39:47a mummy as old as Utsi.
39:49But it will still be extremely difficult.
39:53Testing the DNA of the Iceman is difficult on one hand because he's a wet mummy and in wet mummies
39:59have a lot of humidity.
40:00This is very bad for the DNA preservation.
40:03On the other hand, he was frozen for more than 5,000 years.
40:07This turned out to be good because the coldness preserves the DNA.
40:12If fragments of DNA can be reconstructed, scientists have hopes they will be able to learn a great deal about
40:20characteristics like his eye color, medical history and genetic mutations.
40:33But first, they have to get the DNA.
40:37They will follow a multi-step process in order to see if it is even possible.
40:43For Angela Grafen, a researcher at Albert Zink's lab, helping to piece together the Iceman's genetic profile is the chance
40:51of a lifetime.
40:52I've always been very interested in mummies.
40:55When I got the chance to work on the Iceman, yeah, well, of course, everybody's dream to work on such
41:00a well-known sample as that.
41:03First, Grafen cuts the precious sample of Utsi's bone into smaller pieces using a diamond-tipped saw.
41:16Tiny bone samples are placed into a sterile container with a steel ball.
41:22When the container is shaken at a high speed, the ball pulverizes the bone, breaking apart individual cells.
41:34Grafen adds various chemicals to make the DNA easier to extract.
41:47Days later, what's left is a mixture of clear water and a golden-hued pure DNA.
41:55The DNA is sent from Bolzano, Italy to a lab outside of Boston that specializes in reconstructing DNA.
42:04Ancient DNA is very different from modern DNA for several reasons.
42:09One of the bigger issues with ancient DNA is contamination.
42:14Contamination occurs when the DNA from an outside source, whether from a microbe or a human being, gets mixed up
42:21with the DNA being studied.
42:24Over the years, countless people have touched the mummy, leaving traces of their own DNA behind.
42:32So Zink and a Garter-Viegel took their samples from deep within Utsi's bone, counting on the outer bone to
42:40provide a natural seal to protect the inner bone from contamination.
42:47Because the procedure was so meticulous, the DNA extracted is remarkably pure.
42:5497% is Utsi's.
42:57But there is a mysterious 3% that clearly does not belong to him.
43:03We found an interesting surprise when we looked at this contamination.
43:08A significant portion of the contamination was actually attributable to a microbe that causes Lyme disease.
43:16Lyme disease is caused by a bacteria spread to humans by ticks.
43:24Untreated, its symptoms can include muscle weakness and serious swelling of the joints and arthritis.
43:32While Lyme disease is common today, the microbial DNA contained within Utsi's genes is proof that the disease is at
43:40least as old as the Stone Age.
43:44It's the oldest trace of Lyme disease ever identified.
43:49And here is where Utsi's ancient DNA is nearly unique.
43:54His DNA has an actual body connected to it.
43:58This is different because this is not just a bone.
44:02We can't tell anything off.
44:03But this is a whole mummy.
44:04The whole body is preserved.
44:05So this is the first time we can actually compare a whole genome with a whole preserved body.
44:11X-rays reveal that the Iceman's left knee shows signs of swelling consistent with someone suffering from arthritis or Lyme
44:20disease.
44:24And there are more revelations to come.
44:28After tediously reconstructing 98% of Utsi's fragmented DNA, a clearer picture of who he was emerges.
44:39On the chromosomes of the genes that determine eye color, there's a marker showing that Utsi had brown eyes.
44:50Other markers reveal that those with the closest genetic match living today are not from the Alps, but from Sardinia.
45:05They also found that Lyme disease is not the only ailment Utsi shares with 21st century humans.
45:15Another surprising thing that we find in sequencing Utsi's whole genome is that he had a marker for heart disease.
45:23And of course one would ask, isn't that a modern disease? Why should he have those?
45:26And we know a bit about his lifestyle, he wasn't overweight, he wasn't lazy, he didn't sit on his sofa
45:33all day.
45:34So where could he have got those from?
45:48We still think that many of the diseases are very modern diseases,
45:52civilization diseases that just occur maybe 100, 200 years ago.
45:57Now we see that these genetic modifications were already present much, much longer before.
46:02In fact, Utsi's predisposition to heart disease is more than just a genetic curiosity.
46:09Dr. Paul Gossner's CT images reveal a site familiar in today's cardiology labs.
46:18These two small clumps of calcium correspond to arteriosclerosis of the blood vessels.
46:27While cholesterol forms the blockage that people are most familiar with,
46:32these calcium deposits in Utsi's artery are also a common sign of heart disease.
46:39Despite a lifetime of exercise and what surely must have been an organic diet,
46:46Utsi's arteries look like those of a typical 40-year-old man in the 21st century.
46:52Perhaps that shouldn't be surprising, since genetically we are almost unchanged from Utsi's kind.
46:59We are in a big mistake because we believe that 5,000 years are a lot of time in the
47:10human being development.
47:12But 5,000 years are only 250 generations and so we can't expect changing in our genoma in so short
47:23time.
47:24But a few genes do adapt quickly to environmental and cultural factors.
47:31There's more DNA evidence suggesting Utsi lived in a time of great transition.
47:41Utsi's genes indicate he was lactose intolerant.
47:45He couldn't digest milk as an adult.
47:49It's a condition many believe to be a result of an ailment or allergy.
47:55But they're wrong.
47:58Many people think lactose intolerance is an illness, but you have to bear in mind it's not actually.
48:02It's the original state of humans.
48:05In the Stone Age, all humans were lactose intolerant.
48:08In the ancient past, all humans could digest milk as babies, but lost the ability as they grew older.
48:15That's exactly what happened to Utsi.
48:18But at the very time and place where Utsi lived, a certain gene was just beginning to mutate,
48:25probably in response to greater availability of domesticated cow's milk.
48:31That mutation allows adults to digest milk, an evolutionary process that is still underway.
48:42Today, about 40% of adults worldwide are able to digest milk.
48:48But in the Alps, where Utsi lived, 85% can digest dairy products.
49:01DNA analysis suggests Utsi lived in a time of significant change.
49:07But it gives few clues as to how he died.
49:12That leaves some key questions.
49:16What was he doing on the mountain?
49:18And why was he killed?
49:22The key evidence to emerge from the autopsy comes from his stomach.
49:28Analysis of the extracted material reveals it is a balanced meal of meat and grain.
49:35The most important clue is the amount of food itself.
49:41During the autopsy, they removed nearly a quarter pound of food.
49:45Another quarter pound was left behind.
49:51Food remains in the human stomach for an average of about one hour.
49:57Thorlaimed Utsi ate this very large meal shortly before dying.
50:02This does not seem to be the behaviour of a man on the run.
50:07Being pursued up and down the Alps by enemies.
50:11So I think now this completely changes the picture.
50:14So we really find sure he wasn't fleeing for somebody.
50:18Because otherwise I can't imagine somebody is sitting down having a big meal.
50:22So what does this tell us about how Utsi died?
50:28Add up the evidence.
50:35The missing arrow.
50:37The bleeding from his brain.
50:41A valuable copper axe left behind.
50:45A full stomach.
50:48Zink and Egarter Vigel think this final clue tips the balance.
50:53They now are convinced the Iceman was killed by someone he knew.
50:59Perhaps a member of his own community.
51:06And he never saw it coming.
51:19With the procedures complete, the samples taken, the visiting scientists gone, Egarter Vigel preps the body to be refrozen.
51:32During this period I am alone with the mummy.
51:36Naturally, you let your mind wander and science is no longer the focus.
51:41But you think about how this was actually a person who lived 5000 years ago.
51:47What is his face telling me?
51:49What is the position of his body telling me?
51:53Then I start thinking about mortality.
51:56And well, I feel a real connection with him.
52:02Now, for a while at least, the Iceman will be left in peace.
52:08Of the estimated 100 billion humans who have been born and passed from this earth,
52:14the Iceman has managed to survive the ravages of time.
52:19And he continues to help us understand what it means to be human.
52:42The exploration continues on NOVA's website, where you can watch any part of this program again.
52:48Find out how other ancient bodies were mummified.
52:51From the icy peaks of the Andes to the Iron Age peat bogs of Europe.
52:56And dig deeper into ancient worlds.
52:59With expert interviews, interactives, video extras and more.
53:04Follow NOVA on Facebook and Twitter.
53:06And find us online at pbs.org.
53:11Major funding for NOVA is provided by David H. Koch and...
53:19Discovering new knowledge.
53:24HHMI.
53:27And the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
53:30And by PBS viewers like you.
53:34Additional funding is provided by Millicent Bell through the Millicent and Eugene Bell Foundation.
53:41See you next week.
54:09Look at the
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