An Ice-Cold Case

Summary

Radiolab – “An Ice-Cold Case”

Date: November 19, 2013
Hosts: Jad Abumrad, Robert Krulwich, with Andy Mills (Producer)
Theme:
An investigative deep-dive into the story of Otzi the Iceman, a 5,300-year-old mummy discovered in the Alps, exploring his life, mysterious death, and what modern science has revealed about this ancient individual. The episode artfully blends forensic science, personal obsession, and historical curiosity, reconstructing the last days of a prehistoric man.

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode examines the extraordinary discovery and investigation of Otzi, the Stone Age mummy found in the Alps in 1991. The hosts follow the scientific and human journey from his emergence from the ice to ongoing research into his fate, revealing how a single archaeological find can become a shared obsession for scientists and the public alike. Through interviews with researchers and vivid reconstructions, the story moves from a cold case to an intimate portrait of a long-lost individual—and a fascinating whodunit.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Otzi’s Discovery and the Initial Mystery

• Discovery in 1991

  • Otzi was found by a German hiking couple in the Alps at 3,210 meters (~10,500 ft) elevation, partially protruding from ice ([03:15]–[04:09]).
  • Initial suspicion of a modern mountaineering accident; quickly overturned by unusual clothing (bearskin cap, grass socks), artifacts (copper axe, arrows, medicinal fungus), and extensive tattoos ([04:51]–[05:09]).

• Realization of Age

  • Scientific analysis revealed the body was 5,300 years old—older than the pyramids of Giza ([06:09]–[06:22]).
  • “It was beyond archaeologists’ wildest dreams. A 5,200-year-old perfectly preserved corpse.” – Jim Dixon ([06:22])
  • Otzi’s body, with skin, organs, and even gut contents intact, was “almost perfectly freeze dried” ([06:31]–[06:42]).

• International Drama and Fame

  • Dispute between Austria and Italy over ‘ownership’ (“He’s our mummy. No, he’s our mummy,” [07:38]); eventually Italy took custody.
  • His discovery led to a museum, documentaries, books, and even a tattoo on Brad Pitt ([08:06]–[08:08]).

---

2. The Forensic Investigation – Otzi as a Cold Case

• The Murder Mystery Unfolds

  • In 2001, Dr. Paul Gosner spotted an arrowhead lodged in Otzi’s left shoulder blade via CT scan ([09:13]–[09:37]).
    • “That’s right. The whole thing blows up to a full-scale murder mystery.” ([09:52])
  • Full-body scans revealed other traumatic injuries: abdominal wounds, rib fractures, an orbital fracture to the cranium, and a deep defensive wound on his right hand ([10:32]–[11:03]).
    • “His right palm is very badly cut. It’s so deep that there’s cuts in the underlying bones.” – Jim Dixon ([10:46]–[10:50])

• Timing the Wounds

  • Histology showed the hand wound was a few days old at death, suggesting a violent event prior to the murder ([11:10]–[11:38]).

Notable Segment

• Quote:
  “We try to put together... like doing a crime scene investigation.” — Dr. Albert Zink ([10:06])

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3. Science Reconstructs Otzi’s Final Days

• Decoding His Gut and the Journey

  • Otzi’s well-preserved intestines offered a timeline of his last meals and movements ([11:55]–[12:23]).
    • “It’s like a map and a diary.” – Jim Dixon ([12:02])
  • Pollen analysis showed a pattern:
    • High-altitude pine pollen → Valley hornbeam pollen → High-altitude pollen, suggesting he twice traversed from mountains to the valley and back within days ([13:05]–[14:00]).

• Chronology Reconstructed

  • It was likely early summer (June), as hornbeam pollen in his gut would only be present then ([14:20]).
  • Traces in bones and teeth suggest his home was south of the mountain ([14:33]).
  • Violent attack in his home village resulted in the defensive hand wound ([14:52]–[15:09]).
  • Applied bog moss (a mild antiseptic) to the wound ([15:09]–[15:25]).
  • Fled the village quickly, taking only partially finished arrows (sign of panic) ([15:28]–[15:52]).
    • “You’ve got a guy who’s running, bleeding, and he’s busily carving his arrows, carving as he runs.” ([15:44]–[15:52])
  • Covered over a dozen miles, climbed above 10,000 ft, possibly evading pursuers within 24–36 hours ([15:56]–[16:10]).

• Death: The Final Assault

  • Fatal arrow tore an artery under the left collarbone, causing rapid death; likely finished off with a blow to the head ([16:14]–[16:38]).
    • “He would have died in 20 minutes, perhaps.” – Jim Dixon ([16:32]–[16:35])
  • Body covered by snow and perfectly preserved, “a perfect mixture throughout all these years. A season of snow, a season of ice, and then a thaw…” ([16:38]–[18:26])

Notable Segment

• Quote:
  “We have forensic proof of his suffering... his hunger... forensic evidence that he was cold. This man was a living human being who was tormented and enduring with incredible tenacity.” — Researcher/Scientist ([18:26]–[18:49])

---

4. Ongoing Fascination: Who Was Otzi?

• The Search for Humanity

  • Researchers longed for something “beyond the biology... to find some sense of the humanity” ([18:59]).
  • “I think there’s a hope that something will be found which will say, yes, he was a hero. Yes, he was a king, yes, he was a father.” – Researcher/Scientist ([18:59]–[19:17])

• The Last Supper

  • In 2010, scientists finally discovered Otzi’s stomach, pressed up under his ribcage ([19:30]).
  • Inside: “one and a half pounds of undigested goat meat and bread in his belly, his last meal. This was eaten on the day of his death, maybe just an hour before he died” ([19:30]–[19:54]).
    • “We have proof: he cooked the meat and he sat down. It must have taken time. ...I’m in the cave, I’m by the fire.” — Researcher/Scientist ([20:02]–[20:13])
  • Suggests he “felt safe enough to stew his meat and his bread and sit by the fire and eat his dinner” ([20:32]).

Memorable Moment

• Quote:
  “[For] this brief moment in time, the Alpine Iceman felt safe enough to stew his meat and his bread and sit by the fire and eat his dinner.” — Researcher/Scientist ([20:32])

---

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “Otzi is my benefactor, my friend.” — Jim Dixon ([02:22])
• “It was beyond archaeologists’ wildest dreams. A 5,200-year-old perfectly preserved corpse.” — Jim Dixon ([06:22])
• “It’s like doing a crime scene investigation.” — Dr. Albert Zink ([10:06])
• “You’ve got a guy who’s running, bleeding, and he’s busily carving his arrows, carving as he runs.” ([15:44])
• “He would have died in 20 minutes, perhaps.” — Jim Dixon ([16:35])
• “We have forensic proof of his suffering... undeniable, irrefutable forensic evidence that this man was a living human being who was tormented and enduring with incredible tenacity.” — Researcher/Scientist ([18:26])
• “I can feel it. I’m in the cave, I’m by the fire.” — Researcher/Scientist ([20:13])
• “For this brief moment in time, the Alpine Iceman felt safe enough to stew his meat and his bread and sit by the fire and eat his dinner.” — Researcher/Scientist ([20:32])

---

Structure of the Episode (Important Segments & Timestamps)

• Otzi’s Discovery & Early Theories: [03:15]–[07:46]
• The International Drama & Public Fascination: [07:38]–[08:14]
• Forensic Turn – The Arrowhead, Wounds, and Crime Scene: [09:13]–[11:38]
• Gut Analysis & Reconstructing Otzi’s Last Days: [11:55]–[16:10]
• The Final Attack & Preservation: [16:10]–[18:26]
• Humanizing Otzi – Searching for the Man Behind the Mystery: [18:26]–[21:08]

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Conclusion

Radiolab’s “An Ice-Cold Case” takes listeners from a glacier in the Alps to the intimate (and sometimes macabre) work of scientists seeking to reconstruct a 5,000-year-old murder. Layer by layer, evidence from Otzi’s body, weapons, and even his last meal evoke the individual—and the mystery—behind the legend. What remains is not just the cold science but the lingering, universal hunger to find the person within the specimen, and to feel the distant past as alive, vivid, and tragically human.

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For more information and related stories, visit Radiolab.org.

Transcript

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[Jim Dixon]

Wait, you're listening.

[Soren]

Okay. All right. Okay. All right.

[Researcher/Scientist]

You're listening to Radiolab.

[Soren]

Radio lab shorts from WNY.

[Robert]

See?

[Soren]

Yes, and NPR.

[Jim Dixon]

Hello there, this is Jim Dixon speaking.

[Soren]

Hello, Dr. Dixon. My name is Soren.

[Jim Dixon]

Soren?

[Soren]

Yep. I'm the producer for today. You'll actually be talking to our host, Jason. He's on his way over to the studios right now.

[Jim Dixon]

So that's good.

[Jad]

All right, so let's just start the story here. This is a bit of tape we've had for a while. It's just kind of fun. It'll lead into the story in a sec. Hello, Dr. Dixon.

[Jim Dixon]

Hello there, Jad.

[Jad]

Hi, how are you?

[Jim Dixon]

I'm very well, thank you. I'm always pleased to talk about my delightful obsession that I've had for more than 10 years. It led to my marriage to a French lady. I'm not joking.

[Jad]

How does the marriage to the French lady factor in?

[Jim Dixon]

Ah, well, you. We. We met on email.

[Jad]

Huh.

[Jim Dixon]

A bit like you've got mail. You know, the. The Hollywood film. Well, I mean, my wife was. My wife is sitting beside me and she's making signals. What is it you're saying to you?

[Jad]

Could I. Can I ask, is there any chance we could talk to your wife if.

[Soren]

She'S sitting right next there?

[Researcher/Scientist]

Okay.

[Jim Dixon]

I want to talk to you, dear. Oh, yeah, with my bad English. Hello.

[Researcher/Scientist]

Hi.

[Jad]

Hi.

[Jim Dixon]

Sorry, I am French and my English is not very excellent.

[Jad]

No, you're fantastic. Bonjour.

[Jim Dixon]

Bonjour.

[Jad]

He mentioned that Otzi was what brought you together.

[Jim Dixon]

Yes, it's true. I was a teacher, a primary school teacher. She emailed me some questions about Otzi. Yes. And I answered them to the best of my ability. And shortly after, we were married. Yes.

[Jad]

No kidding.

[Jim Dixon]

So Utsi is my benefactor, my friend.

[Jad]

Okay, so we should introduce ourselves real fast. I'm Jad.

[Robert]

I am Robert.

[Jad]

This is Radiolab, the podcast. And so that guy, Jim Dixon, I believe he's a botanist, called him four years ago to talk about this fellow Otzi. We're gonna tell Otzi's story completely in just A second. But there's something in the whole interaction between him and his wife there that just kind of captures how everybody gets when they get into Otzi, they either get married or they get obsessed.

[Robert]

Yeah, but it wasn't until very recently our producer Andy Mills and I happened to talk to this graphic artist named Aaron Burke, who is also totally obsessed with this guy.

[Researcher/Scientist]

Yes. Yeah, I think there's this hunger on the part of the researcher.

[Robert]

That's when we really understood what this story is all about.

[Soren]

Yeah, I mean, at least for me, that's where it all started.

[Robert]

And since Andy's been reporting this piece, why don't Andy, you just, you just take the ball from here, okay?

[Jad]

Do it, Andy.

[Soren]

So story starts 1991, way up in.

[Jim Dixon]

The Alps at 3210 meters above sea level. I know you Americans don't think in meters. That's roughly ten and a half thousand feet.

[Researcher/Scientist]

This is a frozen glacial spot and.

[Soren]

Up there walking around were two hill walkers.

[Jad]

Two hill walkers? Hikers.

[Jim Dixon]

Hikers, Aye. It was a German couple, a man and wife.

[Soren]

It was early in the afternoon and at some point they'd take a notion.

[Researcher/Scientist]

To head off trail and they were.

[Jim Dixon]

Only 100 yards off the beaten track.

[Soren]

And after just a few minutes they.

[Researcher/Scientist]

Round a little rock and that's when they were stopped dead in their tracks.

[Robert]

By what?

[Researcher/Scientist]

By a corpse.

[Jim Dixon]

This corpse sticking out of the ice. He was lying on his stomach, face.

[Researcher/Scientist]

Down in the ice.

[Jim Dixon]

He was kind of draped over a big boulder.

[Soren]

His legs are buried under the ice up to his hips and his, his top half is just sticking out.

[Researcher/Scientist]

His left arm is kind of under his forehead, almost like a schoolboy falling asleep in class on his arm.

[Soren]

So these two hikers, they see this and they run off for help.

[Jim Dixon]

They hot footed it to the nearby mountain hut, thinking it was a mountaineering.

[Soren]

Accident, a recent one.

[Jim Dixon]

And they called the police.

[Soren]

They said, hey, somebody, a tourist or a climber had some sort of accident. And so the cops showed up with drills and ice picks and, and started to chip away at the ice, trying to get the body out. But then I started noticing some things like this guy had all these tattoos.

[Jim Dixon]

On his back and behind his knees.

[Soren]

Then they start noticing all this stuff buried with him.

[Researcher/Scientist]

He's got some kind of moccasin, looks like ox skin.

[Soren]

He had a bearskin cap, unusual stuff.

[Jim Dixon]

He had a copper headed U hafted axe.

[Jad]

A what?

[Researcher/Scientist]

A small pouch filled with medicinal tree fungus.

[Jim Dixon]

Really? A quiver full of arrows, a long bow.

[Soren]

He had grass socks.

[Robert]

Grass socks?

[Researcher/Scientist]

Woven grass A dagger that has been chipped out of stone.

[Soren]

And so these cops realize this is.

[Researcher/Scientist]

Not a 20th century tourist who wandered off trail.

[Jim Dixon]

This was something extraordinary.

[Researcher/Scientist]

This is old.

[Robert]

Like Renaissance or old Middle ages or old.

[Jim Dixon]

Well, wouldn't we like to know.

[Jad]

And what did the police do?

[Jim Dixon]

Well, the police reported it to the forensic authorities in the University of Innsbruck.

[Soren]

Basically they took it to a team of local scientists who sent samples out to a bunch of labs and eventually confirmed that yeah, this is old. But not just old, this was really old. This body is 5,300 years old.

[Albert Zink]

Wow.

[Jim Dixon]

Yes.

[Soren]

That's way before Jesus, way before Moses.

[Researcher/Scientist]

If you were to use as a historic mark point, let's say the pyramids of Egypt, this would be 700 years prior to the construction of the pyramid in Giza.

[Jim Dixon]

It was beyond archaeologists wildest dreams. A 5, 200 year old perfectly preserved corpse.

[Researcher/Scientist]

We're talking about a man with all his skin, with his eyeballs, his teeth, his tongue, his groin, his organs, his guts, everything's in there. Everything is almost perfectly freeze dried.

[Jim Dixon]

There he is.

[Jad]

So what does he look like?

[Jim Dixon]

Oh, well, he was bearded.

[Researcher/Scientist]

He's 45 years old, which I think for four for 3000 BC is pretty darn old.

[Jim Dixon]

And he was a small guy, he was only about 5 foot 2 in height.

[Researcher/Scientist]

But his calf muscles, his thigh muscles are incredibly developed.

[Jim Dixon]

Yeah.

[Researcher/Scientist]

So this would suggest that he's a hunter or a shepherd of some kind who walks these mountains.

[Jim Dixon]

His physique is comparable to a modern Olympian wrestler. He's very obviously a human being. Very, very obviously. And he would have all the and fears of you and I.

[Researcher/Scientist]

They even gave him a name, Utzi Etzi Ertzy Utzi.

[Soren]

Even though some of us can't really pronounce that name.

[Researcher/Scientist]

Otzi spell it O with two dots on top.

[Soren]

Scientists call him Otzi.

[Researcher/Scientist]

There's all kinds of drama. There's Austria competing with Italy. He's our mummy. No, he's our mummy. He's on the border. Whose mummy is he?

[Soren]

Eventually the Italians got him because he's.

[Jim Dixon]

Said to be 92 meters inside Italy.

[Researcher/Scientist]

A whole museum is built around him. An entire facility is buil to freeze him. There's teams of researchers, there's competing universities, you have documentaries, you have books and articles about this incredible mummy who was walking in the ice. He fell. Isn't that fascinating?

[Soren]

You know Brad Pitt?

[Jim Dixon]

Yeah.

[Soren]

He got a tattoo of OT on his arm.

[Robert]

Really?

[Soren]

But what everyone really wanted to know.

[Jim Dixon]

Was who was this prehistoric person?

[Soren]

Who was this guy?

[Researcher/Scientist]

Where did he come from was he a scout? Was he a traveler?

[Jim Dixon]

Where was he going?

[Researcher/Scientist]

How did he fall?

[Jim Dixon]

How had he died?

[Researcher/Scientist]

Was it a storm that took him?

[Jim Dixon]

And what was he doing so high in the mountains?

[Soren]

Yeah, but when we found him, there really. There really wasn't any way to answer these kinds of questions. All you got was wild speculation. But this is where it becomes more than a story about an ancient dead guy. Over the past, what, 22 years since he's been found, all these researchers keep coming back to Otzi, and they've gathered just enough little pieces of evidence that when you put it all together, what you get is this surprisingly intimate, look at this one real person, like this one real dude who lived 5,300 years ago. And for our purposes, the first piece of that puzzle falls into place on a Summer's Day in 2001, when a.

[Researcher/Scientist]

Radiologist named Dr. Paul Gosner is staring at a CT scan, basically a 3D X ray of Otzi's chest, maybe for the umpteenth time, for the thousandth time.

[Soren]

When suddenly.

[Researcher/Scientist]

He notices something unusual right up by Otzi's shoulder blade in the left scapula.

[Robert]

What does he notice?

[Researcher/Scientist]

He finds an arrowhead lodged in the shoulder blade. And I think it was hard to see because it's stone, not metal. If it was metal, they would have picked it up right away.

[Robert]

So does this mean that this is like a possible murder?

[Researcher/Scientist]

That's right. The whole thing blows up to a full scale murder mystery.

[Albert Zink]

From that moment on, we knew that he was shot with an arrow. And then it all started.

[Soren]

The research about, that's Albert Zink. He's actually the top scientist in charge of Otzi.

[Albert Zink]

These days, what we do is like doing a crime scene investigation. We try to put together.

[Soren]

Not too long after Gossner spotted that arrowhead, Zink and his team, they take Otzi, they actually put him into an ambulance, rush him as fast as they can to a hospital, trying to make sure that he doesn't thaw. And they put him into a higher resolution full body CT scan.

[Researcher/Scientist]

And the plot thickens further. We find severe abdominal wounds and rib.

[Soren]

Fractures, things that before may have come across as 5,000-year-old wear and tear.

[Researcher/Scientist]

There's an orbital fracture of the cranium.

[Soren]

Now it's like we're seeing them with new eyes.

[Researcher/Scientist]

His head is busted.

[Soren]

And not only that, his right palm.

[Jim Dixon]

Is very badly cut. It's very deep.

[Robert]

How deep?

[Researcher/Scientist]

It's so deep that there's cuts in the under underlying bones.

[Jim Dixon]

And some pathologists say It's a defensive.

[Albert Zink]

Wound, a wound that comes from a fight.

[Jim Dixon]

He held his right hand up and he got slashed on his right palm.

[Soren]

And in trying to piece together what happened, one of the questions that scientists like Albert Zink asked was like this cut on his hand, was it a.

[Albert Zink]

Fresh wound or this was already a.

[Soren]

Healing wound, like how much time had passed between when he got the cut and when he died?

[Albert Zink]

Well, we took a little tissue piece.

[Soren]

Out of the wound, they rehydrated it, they sliced it up with lasers, we.

[Albert Zink]

Made little slices and we have a look at them in microscope and they.

[Soren]

Could see evidence that when he died, the blood from this wound was just starting to clot, but that it had not yet formed a scab when he died. Which told them that this attack, this.

[Albert Zink]

Must be a wound that happened already three or four days before he died.

[Soren]

Which added another question to the list, like, what happened in those last three or four days between the time he got cut in the time he died?

[Jim Dixon]

Well, I mean, I think this is the most fascinating thing of all about utsi.

[Soren]

Jim told us, luckily for scientists, his.

[Jim Dixon]

Intestines are wrong there.

[Soren]

And to the trained eye, your intestines.

[Jim Dixon]

It'S like a map and a diary.

[Jad]

A diary?

[Jim Dixon]

Yeah, a diary.

[Jad]

In what way?

[Jim Dixon]

If there's any food in your stomach, it's less than four hours old, which.

[Soren]

Would probably be your last meal.

[Jim Dixon]

And the stuff in an intermediate position, like the colon, is between a few hours old and, and a few days.

[Soren]

Old, your last few meals.

[Jim Dixon]

So if you get samples from all these and look at the content, you can deduce all sorts of things.

[Soren]

Um, but one small problem, if you've got a 5,000 year old mummy on your hands, you can't exactly just cut him open. So Jim and his team, what they did is they snaked some fancy equipment up his, up his butt and started rooting around.

[Jim Dixon]

I mean, I didn't do that. You appreciate. I'm a botanist, I'm not a medi.

[Soren]

Someone else from his team did that. In any case, they got up in there and first of all, they couldn't find the stomach, but they did pull out samples from the rest of his guts and they found pollen. Pollen? Pollen, actually two kinds of pollen.

[Researcher/Scientist]

One from, from the fresh flowers of the hop. Hornbeam.

[Jim Dixon]

Yes.

[Soren]

A tree that blooms down in the valley. And conifer pollen, a second kind of pollen from high altitude evergreen trees.

[Researcher/Scientist]

So you've got the high mountain firs and the, the deciduous trees of the valley of the low places. You've got the hornbeam.

[Soren]

Both of these kinds of pollen were found in Otzi's gut, probably because he drank some water which contained the pollen. But here's the key. The pollen from the valley, it's sandwiched in between these two layers of mountain pollen. And that implies an order. Otzi must have first ingested the pine pollen, then the horns beam, and then the pine pollen again. And that suggests about two days or.

[Jim Dixon]

So before he died. He was high up in the hills.

[Researcher/Scientist]

Drinking pollen laded water high above, and.

[Jim Dixon]

Then he was very low down below.

[Researcher/Scientist]

The tree line, drinking pollen laded water down below.

[Jim Dixon]

And then he came back up again to meet his end.

[Soren]

And so taking all that and a couple other pieces of research here is what we think happened to Otzi in his last days. We know that it would have been summertime, probably Otzi, probably June, because that horns bean pollen in his gut only.

[Researcher/Scientist]

Blooms in the early summertime, in June.

[Soren]

And for whatever reason, maybe he's hunting, maybe he's looking for copper, we don't know. But we do know he's high up.

[Jim Dixon]

In the mountains, right?

[Soren]

Well above the tree line.

[Jim Dixon]

And then he goes back down to.

[Soren]

His village, which we believe was south of the mountain, because certain chemicals in the local water were also found in Otzi's teeth and bones. Anyway, it was not a short walk home.

[Jim Dixon]

It's a long way down. It's 5,6000ft we're talking about.

[Soren]

Then we know that within the span of about 24 hours, something happens in his village, something violent.

[Albert Zink]

Maybe his people were fighting with other people. Where he got.

[Soren]

The details are a little blurry, but it is clear that he was attacked, that he put his right hand up to defend himself, and that he gets that cut.

[Jim Dixon]

It's very deep, it's very bloody, it's very painful. And shortly after that event, he bends down and picks up a clump of bog moss.

[Soren]

Jim actually found that bog moss on Otzi, and he says that it's.

[Jim Dixon]

It's mildly antiseptic.

[Soren]

Anyway, Otzi, he heads back up the mountain.

[Jim Dixon]

He goes back up again, perhaps pursued by somebody or people, plural.

[Soren]

We think that maybe he was in.

[Jim Dixon]

A hurry because of the 14 arrows.

[Soren]

That he was carrying, only two had.

[Jim Dixon]

Flint tips and feathers, and the other.

[Researcher/Scientist]

12 were useless, which suggests a frantic state. I mean, you've got a guy who's running, bleeding, and he's busily carving his.

[Soren]

Arrows, carving as he runs. And for about a day or maybe.

[Jim Dixon]

A day and a half, he's running.

[Soren]

A lot like we know that he runs over 12 miles that he gets up above 10,000ft above sea level, managing to evade whoever it is that's coming after him. But then.

[Jim Dixon]

The fatal arrow shot.

[Researcher/Scientist]

This is the official report from the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology. We can see that the point of the arrow tore a hole in the artery beneath his left collarbone, which led to a massive hematoma which bled into the thorax cavity, which in turn caused cardiac arrest and sudden death.

[Soren]

He bled to death.

[Jim Dixon]

He would have died in less than half an hour.

[Jad]

Really.

[Jim Dixon]

He would have died in 20 minutes, perhaps.

[Soren]

And according to a lot of researchers, whoever killed Otzi came over, pulled the arrow shaft out of Otzi's back, picked up a big stone and bashed his head in. And then within about an hour, maybe two, his body would have been completely covered in snow. Then within a month or so, that snow would have become ice. And then when the next summer came around, that ice would have thawed out just enough to allow a little sunlight to come through. The next winter, he would have froze again following summer, thawed a little bit and then froze again and then thawed. And here's why that's important. Bodies that are completely frozen deteriorate. Those periods of thaw kept him from deteriorating. So you had this perfect mixture throughout all these years. A season of snow, a season of ice, and then a thaw, and then a snow, and then an ice and then a thaw. I mean, just think about it, year in and year out, and then the snow throughout the building of the pyramids, the rise and fall of Rome, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution. All of this time, Otzi was there in that spot, just a few feet away from where he was murdered. Until 1991, when a couple of German hikers decided to head off trail.

[Researcher/Scientist]

We have forensic proof of his suffering. We have forensic proof of his hunger. We have forensic evidence that he was cold. We have all of this undeniable, irrefutable forensic evidence that this man was a living human being who was tormented and was enduring with incredible tenacity.

[Soren]

And in the last few years, scientists have still been at it. They've still been poking at Otzi, trying to figure out who was this guy, not just who might he have been, but who was he really.

[Researcher/Scientist]

I think there's a hope that something will be found which will say, yes, he was a hero. Yes, he was a king, yes, he was a father. I think there's this hunger on the part of the researchers to find. To find something beyond the biology, beyond the molecular chemistry, to find some sense of the humanity.

[Soren]

And in the years since we spoke with Jim Dixon, scientists did find something, which, for Aaron at least, does give him that sense. In 2010, they found Otzi's stomach, which Jim and his team, they couldn't find.

[Researcher/Scientist]

Because it was tucked deep up under his rib cage, pressed up against his heart. They find the stomach, and inside one and a half pounds of undigested goat meat and bread in his belly, his last meal. This was eaten on the day of.

[Soren]

His death, maybe just an hour before he died.

[Researcher/Scientist]

It was a huge feast.

[Soren]

And for Aaron, imagining Otzi sitting at that fire right before he died, that's what did it.

[Researcher/Scientist]

Oh, I can see it. He's eating. He cooked his food. We have proof. He cooked the meat and he sat down. It must have taken time. It took at least an hour or two. Like, I can feel it. I'm in the cave, I'm by the fire.

[Soren]

That's what brought him back.

[Robert]

So you're saying then, that some hours before, he had somehow the time to build a fire, catch or acquire or carry a fairly substantial meal and sit and eat it somewhat at rest. So he must not have known what was coming, was coming.

[Researcher/Scientist]

Well, maybe he knew. Maybe he had found some kind of resolution around it. But we have forensic proof that for this brief moment in time, the Alpine Iceman felt safe enough to stew his meat and his bread and sit by the fire and eat his dinner.

[Soren]

Before we go, two brief notes. First, Robert and Jad will be back from our live show tour by our next podcast, and if you want to see them this week in either Portland or Seattle, go to our website, Radiolab.org live. Second, a friend of the show, a novelist named Stefan Bloc, he heard about this guy. Otzi got obsessed. But unlike Brad Pitt, instead of getting a tattoo, he wrote a fictional piece that tries to answer some of those remaining questions, like, why was Otzi pursued? Who was after him? Why'd they kill him? You'll soon be able to find that piece, along with a lot of other great stuff, on our website, Radiolab.org and, of course, thanks for listening.

[Jim Dixon]

This is Bonnie calling from Boston, Massachusetts. Radiolab is supported in part by the National SC foundation and by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about [e-mail].