"Diarmid Logan" <diarmidlogan@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:6d220a72.0310310809.4562bf8b@posting.google.com...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3227339.stm
Iceman mystery solved
By Helen Briggs
BBC News Online
Scientists have pinpointed the likely birthplace of Oetzi the famous
Iceman.
The ancient hunter probably spent his childhood in what is now the
Italian South Tyrol village of Feldthurns.
Evidence suggests his lifelong travels were confined to a 60-kilometre
(37-mile) range south-east of where his body was found.
The 5,300-year-old frozen mummy emerged from a melting glacier along
the mountainous border between Italy and Austria in 1991.
Scientists have been carrying out detailed studies of how he lived and
died ever since.
The latest research, published in the journal Science, looked at
isotopes found in the Iceman's teeth and bones.
They were compared with soil and water samples over a wide area of the
Alps.
Biominerals from the diet are deposited in the body at different times
- in the teeth, for example, during childhood, and in the bones in
adult life.
This allowed researchers in Australia, the United States and
Switzerland to deduce where Oetzi lived at various stages of his life.
The team believes his movements were restricted to a few valleys
within 60 kilometres south east of where his body was discovered.
He never moved north of this point and probably grew up in the Eisack
valley, in the southern Tyrol.
Several ancient archaeological sites in and around this region have
been identified.
The scientists think Feldthurns is the Iceman's most likely childhood
home: excavations have revealed a standing stone dating back to the
Copper Age.
Later on in life, he moved further north to the mountains of lower
Vinschgau, before travelling to the Otz valley where he met his death
at the age of 46.
Dr Alexander Halliday of the Department of Earth Sciences at RTH
Zurich told BBC News Online: "This is the first time that anyone has
made a comprehensive study of the migration of a human in the past.
"It looks like he lived much of his life in a different valley from
where he was born.
"The impression one gets is that the Alpine valleys in that particular
area were fairly well-inhabited."
The research is consistent with the Iceman spending his childhood in
the southern Alpine valleys before migrating further north in
adulthood.
Alternatively, he could have spent his summers up in the mountains and
moved down to the valleys in the winter.
This is a pattern of seasonal migration that started in the Middle
Neolithic period and is still practiced today.
