Oetzi - Face Look and Facebook

ANOTHER FAMILY PHOTO – AND NOW A FACEBOOK PAGE OF HIS OWN

If you are involved in Family History research it is always particularly exciting to find photos and paintings related to your ancestors. I have to admit rather sadly that photos of my two maternal line great grandfathers are the oldest in my collection. Doing without an ancestral mansion is no problem but I still miss the stairway portraits.

It is gratifying then that my mitichondrial dna has provided a venerable and well-illustrated distant cousin. Not only does this relationship predate history, the relative himself is becoming more famous by the year. So much so that he has recently had a new life-size statue created in his honour – and a Facebook page has been opened on his behalf.

I’ll let the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology Press Office take over here:

'To mark the 20th anniversary of his discovery, the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bozen is mounting a Special Exhibition to Ötzi, the Iceman, from 1 March 2011 to 15 January 2012. The Museum will also be presenting the new reconstruction of Ötzi at the opening of the exhibition.

On 19 September 2011 the Iceman celebrates 20 years of his second life. People all over the world watched on in amazement two decades ago as the intact body of a man from the Copper Age, along with his clothing and equipment, was recovered from a glacier in the Ötztal Alps where it had been preserved for 5,300 years.

Long after his death, Ötzi, Iceman, now holds humans in his spell with ever more insights into his life and death. Over three million people have so far visited Ötzi in the museum, while numerous scientists have examined him. The South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bozen is thus this year dedicating the special exhibition “Ötzi20 - Life. Science. Fiction. Reality” to Ötzi.

The special exhibition occupies 1,200 m², the entire exhibition area of the museum building: four floors, each devoted to one of the topics life, science, fiction and reality, will illuminate the full range of his discovery, the circumstances of his life, the results of the research and the media reality and fictions that have grown up around him. Interactive stations as well as films, interviews and hands-on displays guarantee an educational experience that is both exciting and entertaining.

The exhibition for the first time intends to analyse Ötzi above and beyond this scientific aspect. What image of him has developed? What role do the media play in this? What phenomena have arisen around Ötzi and what unusual results has all this produced? The answers to these questions allow visitors gradually to get closer to him.

New scientific discoveries and discussions will also be contributed to the Ötzi20 exhibition throughout the year. What secrets will the latest research methods reveal? Ötzi20 is not just a retrospective, it is also a snapshot that asks questions about the future.

As a window into our archaeological past and as a social sensation, the Iceman will provide us with food for thought for a long time to come.

One of the most frequently asked questions today remains: what did Ötzi look like? For the opening of the exhibition the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology will be presenting to the public a new reconstruction of Ötzi, based on anatomical 3D images of his skull.

The Museum commissioned the Dutch brothers Adrie and Alfons Kennis to create a new, naturalistic reconstruction based on scientific principles. His watchful gaze today meets visitors to the Museum, shaping our conceptions of the Stone Age inhabitants of the Alpine regions.

Ötzi gives our history a “face” in the truest sense of the word, moving and fascinating people from all over the world (see photo above).

The German photographer Heike Engel (21Lux) documented the work of the Kennis brothers over half a year and recorded the entire reconstruction process for the South Tyrolean Museum of Archaeology. Her close co-operation with the twins, revealed in a series of photos, makes their masterful handiwork seem almost close enough to touch. Her photos give viewers the feeling of actually being present in the artists’ studio.

Since his discovery, numerous artists have addressed the subject of Ötzi in the most different disciplines and techniques. One representative is the British artist, Marilène Oliver, whose installation in the special exhibition plays with the multifaceted nature of the mummy.

In her work “Iceman Frozen, Scanned and Plotted”, Oliver translated a CT scan of the body into plot points, then drilled them layer for layer into acrylic sheets and fused them together into a block.

The South Tyrolean photographic artist Brigitte Niedermair has searched all over Europe for the “Image of Ötzi” that exhibitions have created of him. Her “Tableau Vivant” of large-scale photos records numerous reconstructions of Ötzi in very different contexts and interpretations. There will be an Artist Talk with both artists in the Museion at 7.30 p.m. on 1 March, the first day that the special exhibition is open to visitors.

The Museion, Bozen’s museum for modern and contemporary art, will for the duration of the entire special exhibition be showing the work by Hans Winkler entitled “Ötzis Flucht” (Ötzi’s flight), an archaeological crime thriller featuring Ötzi’s (fictitious) tracks.

The anniversary year will also feature numerous visitor events. Ötzi20 is not simply an exhibition: alongside the “17.31 Blick.Punkte” events with the main players (curators, planners, scientists, technicians) and workshops on various topics, there are also various initiatives aimed at the 60-plus generation.

The Museum will also be offering guided tours for residents who are interested in other languages or have moved to the city from elsewhere, in languages such as Bosnian-Serbo-Croatian, Urdu, Hindi, Russian, Ukrainian and Spanish. And on 18 September and into the early morning hours of 19 September – the day that the man from the ice was discovered – there will be a major birthday celebration for Ötzi.

For current information on the events surrounding Ötzi20, the special exhibition at the South Tyrolean Museum of Archaeology, go to http://oetzi20.it.'

One for the Family Album

OETZI AND I

I have gone a bit quiet of late on matters of Family History but am stirred into action this morning by the appearance of a photo of one of my (distant) relatives.

Oetzi and I are related through our mothers, both of whom belong to the ‘Katrine Clan’ in terms of their mitochondrial DNA.

We seem to share some family characteristics but he looks as though he needs a good feed.

FIVE MILLENIA ON, ICEMAN OF BOLZANO GIVES UP DNA SECRETS

Oetzi's genetic code could shed light on hereditary diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cancer.

[By Michael Day, UK Independent, Monday, 2 August 2010]

Nearly 20 years after the dead man's head was found peeping from a melting Alpine glacier, investigators have finally seen fit to contact his relatives.

This doesn't indicate sloth on the part of the Italian authorities, but instead, advances in DNA technology that may lead scientists to living descendants of the South Tyrol's 5,300-year-old mummified man.

Oetzi the iceman, who today resides in a sterile, glass box at 7C in 100 per cent humidity, is by far the oldest mummified person ever found – those of ancient Egypt are at least 1,000 years younger. He is the permanent star exhibit in a museum in the town of Bolzano.

In this grotesque but timeless state, researchers have been able to extract DNA from a bone in his pelvis. And this week it was announced they had sequenced his entire genome and that the hunt was now on to find Oetzi's descendants – and evidence of genetic changes that have occurred since Neolithic times.

With Oetzi's complete genetic map for their perusal, Dr Albert Zink, the director of the Iceman Institute in Bolzano, and his colleagues said it might also be possible to shed light on hereditary aspects of diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cancer.

"There are key gene mutations that we know are associated with diseases such as cancer and diabetes and we want to see if Oetzi had them or whether they arose more recently," he said.

Earlier studies had decoded the iceman's mitochondrial DNA, but these tiny gene sequences, which are passed by mothers to their children, provided only limited information, although they did suggest that if Oetzi still had relatives in the Alps, there weren't that many of them.

Dr Zink, is now working with Carsten Pusch from the Institute of Human Genetics at the University of Tübingen and Andreas Keller from Febit, a bio-tech firm in Heidelberg, to share resources and knowledge, and hopefully speed the arrival of research findings in time for next year's 20th annivesary of Oetzi's discovery.

"From comparisons based on the mitochondrial DNA we weren't able to find any relatives in the region. But with the entire genome, there's a good chance we might," said Dr Zink. "We're at the start of a big and very exciting project. I think Oetzi is going to provide us with a lot of information."

Oetzi has proved a goldmine for scientists since he was discovered in the snow on 19 September 1991, over 3,000m up on the Italian-Austrian border. Anthropologists learnt from the degree and positioning of wear and tear in Oetzi's joints that some Neolithic people, contrary to previous theories, spent most if not all their lives high in the mountains.

Oetzi, who was about 5ft 5in tall, weighed about 59 kg and was probably around 45 years old when he died, had also been around the block a few times. He had three broken ribs, a nasty cut on his hand, the intestinal parasite whipworm and fleas.

Scientist were also able to piece together his attire – a goatskin loincloth, leather leggings, a goatskin coat and a cloak of grass stitched together with animal sinews.

He wore a bearskin cap and leather shoes stuffed with grass to keep his feet warm.

But Oetzi might be considered ahead of his time in the style stakes. While today's young Italians race to cover their legs, necks and elbows in ugly spider web tattoos, Oetzi had beaten them to it with, around 57, rather more tasteful, carbon tattoos consisting of dots and lines.

It was the nature of Oetzi's death, though, that has most captured the imagination. Initially, it was thought that he froze to death in a blizzard.

But CT scans have since revealed that his body contained a flint-headed arrow that entered through his shoulder stopping just short of his left lung, but rupturing the key blood vessel carrying blood from his heart to his left arm. Oetzi was murdered.

"Judging by the degree of damage to a major artery, it's almost certain that he bled to death," said Dr Zink, "and quickly, too."

Traces of blood from four different people on the Otzi's dagger suggest an earlier or ongoing skirmish might have been related to the fatal wound, perhaps with the iceman taking an arrow in the back while fleeing his adversaries -- members, possibly of a rival tribe.

The absence of an arrow shaft has led one researcher, Dr Eduard Egarter Vigl, a pathologist in Bolzano, to suggest the killer had removed it to cover his tracks, since arrows can be identified easily.

More prosaic controversies have arisen, too, following the discovery of his corpse in the Schnalstal glacier. At first, it wasn't clear in which country Oetzi had been discovered. But surveys in October 1991 showed that the body had been found 93 meters inside Italian territory, and so the Italian province grabbed Oetzi.

And the tourist board made a killing. So too did the woman who found him.

Although it wasn't until May this year that the acrimonious dispute over the finder's fee was finally decided.

Authorities announced they would meet the €175,000 (£150,000) demand of the German couple, Helmut and Erika Simon, who found the Iceman. Mrs Simon, by now a widow, argued that the mummy had earned the city of Bolzano tens of million of euros – and that she deserved more than the €5,000 she'd originally been offered for discovering the corpse.

Several others have tried to get the paws on the money. One, a Swiss woman, said she spat on the Iceman to stake her claim. Her DNA was not found on the body, however.

Another, a Slovenian actress, claimed she beat the German couple to the scene by about five minutes and had asked them to take photos of the corpse. But she could produce no one to corroborate her account.

The discovery of Oetzi has also spawned a host of exotic theories regarding the circumstances behind his violent death. One space technology professor has suggested that evidence of an asteroid landing in the area in that period might be linked to the Iceman's demise. He wondered whether Oetzi had been a powerful figure and was used as a ritual sacrifice in order to appease the gods who'd sent the terrifying extra-terrestrial object.

Another theory contested by residents of this formerly Austrian region, who see the Iceman as their forefather, claims he was cast out from his community because a low sperm count rendered him childless.

"I'm not sure whether we'll be able to say whether that's true or not with the DNA sequencing," said Dr Zink. "But there are lots of questions that we might be able to answer."

But staring at poor Oetzi's gnarled, brown corpse, you can't help wondering if the most obvious question is ethical rather than scientific: how recently does someone have to have died before they're entitled to a proper burial - instead of being left in a glass cage like a gooey prop from a horror film, for people to gawp at?

"There has been some discussion on this," says Dr Zink, "and it's a fair point. But this man is 5,300 years old. We do treat him with respect; we look after the body very, very carefully, and he provides us with lot of valuable information. And besides, even if we were to bury him we wouldn't be able to do it according to his customs because we don't know what they were."

So the Iceman will remain the star museum exhibit for the thousands of people who come each year to the Alpine town and stare at his sticky, brown corpse.

But even if they can't bury him, today's distant relatives of the Iceman, might conceivably see the medical benefits -- if, as they say, his captors manage to unlock the secret of his genes.

Reconstruction of how Oetzi looked in life

Keith's Oldest Relative - Oetzi the Iceman

Background

Bryan Sykes, an Oxford University geneticist, found that female-line mitochondrial DNA could be extracted from ancient bones. This led to the discovery that virtually all of the 560 million modern Europeans descended from seven individual women who lived tens of thousands of years ago. He named them Ursula, Xenia, Helena, Velda, Tara, Katrine, and Jasmine.

Sykes' research began in 1991 with the discovery in the Italian Alps of a body frozen in the ice. The frozen body that was discovered represents the oldest known Katrine descendant. He has been named ‘Oetzi the Iceman’. Estimated at 5000 years old, the Iceman proved to have the basic mutations for a K: 16224C and 16311C. Every Katrine dna holder is a cousin of Oetzi.

Katrine is estimated to have lived about 16,000 years ago. Katrina's clan accounts for six percent of Europeans, and is particularly common in and around the Mediterranean. One theory is that the clan ‘wintered out’ the Last Ice Age in Lombardy, Italy (unlike Keith’s paternal ancestors who were living beyond the Pyrenees in Spain).

The DNA extracted from the 5000-year-old remains of Oetzi was identical with that of a woman living now in Dorset, England. Dorset is very close to Wiltshire – the home of Keith’s oldest identified female ancestor Martha Whatley.


Oetzi’ Story – a 5,200-year-old hunter who didn’t stray far from his Alpine home

The mysterious 5,200-year-old iceman found in an Alpine glacier was born in a valley in what is now northern Italy and didn’t travel far from home, an international team of researchers has concluded.

Indeed, the iceman, known as Ötzi, probably spent his whole life within about 37miles of the spot near the Italy-Austria border where he was found frozen, according to the team led by Wolfgang Mueller of the Australian National University in Canberra.

A group of hikers discovered Ötzi’s well-preserved body in 1991; since then, he and his clothing and tools have opened a window on the previously little known world of copper-age Europe. Ötzi is currently housed at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy.


Teeth, bones, guts studied

Mueller’s team, which also includes researchers from the United States and Switzerland, studied the forms of different elements in Ötzi’s teeth, bones and intestines and compared them with the types found in water and soil in the region.

Elements such as oxygen and argon are found in different forms, called isotopes, and by comparing the ratio of one isotope to another in body tissue scientists can determine the source of the food or water the person has been consuming.

The researchers also looked at the isotopes of strontium and lead in Ötzi.The findings for tooth enamel can show what a person had been eating and drinking as a child, while bone provides a similar measure for adults. In addition, the intestines give an indication of activities during a person’s final days.

Water in the area where Ötzi was found varies in oxygen isotope ratio because rainfall to the north comes from the cooler and more distant Atlantic Ocean, while that to the south comes from the warmer and closer Mediterranean.

Analysis of Ötzi’s tooth enamel indicates that between the ages of 3 and 5 he was drinking water with isotope ratios found only to the south of where he was found frozen.

However, bone analysis of the isotope level ingested as an adult shows a contribution from both northern and southern water sources, something the researchers said could indicate migration into one or more of several nearby valleys.

The isotope ratios for strontium and lead vary depending on the types of rock and soil in an area. The scientists also analyzed the argon ratio of bits of mica found in the intestine, believed to have been ingested as a result of eating stone-ground grain.


Narrowing down his address

Using this data, the team was able to rule out the region south of Bolzano as home to Ötzi, saying instead that he more likely resided in the Schnals or Etsch/Adige valley near Merano or the nearby Ulten, middle Eisack or lower Puster valleys, between Bolzano and the Austrian border.

“Our data indicate that the Iceman spent his entire life in the area south of the discovery site” near the border between Italy and Austria, the team concluded. They noted that one location, Feldthurns, near Bressanone in the Eisack valley, gives the closest match between local soils and Ötzi’s tooth enamel.

Earlier studies have indicated that Ötzi was between 25 and 40 when he died, suffered from arthritis and had an arrowhead embedded in a shoulder, probably the cause of death.