Ötzi the Iceman

We’re on the trail of a killer in the Alps. Let’s investigate one of history’s coldest cases.

In 1991, a German couple hiking in the Alps on the Austria-Italy border stumbled across one of the world’s oldest crime scenes. They spotted something brown in a rocky gully (a channel with steep sides) and, thinking it was a piece of rubbish, went for a closer look. They saw to their horror a human head and upper body sticking out of the meltwater – a preserved body frozen in the ice. But who was this mysterious person? What was he doing so high up? And how did he die?

A cold case

At first, people thought the body belonged to a climber who had been killed in a fall. Investigators named the body Ötzi, after the Ötztal Alps mountain range where the body was found, and got to work. This is where the story took a strange turn.

The team found items that proved Ötzi was much older than they thought. These included an axe made from yew wood with a copper blade, an enormous longbow, arrows, containers made from tree bark, and other tools. The “iceman” was fully clothed when he died, but his clothes were damaged by the wind and weather over time. They were made from goat and sheep hide (animal skin) and his shoelaces from cow leather. Ötzi’s right shoe was still on his foot. This certainly didn’t look like a burial of someone who had died of natural causes.

An archaeologist (an expert who studies ancient remains) called Konrad Spindler was brought in to lead the investigation team. Radiocarbon dating (a scientific way of finding out how old something is) confirmed that the body was more than 5,300 years old, making it the oldest naturally-preserved human body ever found – and older than the Egyptian pyramids.

Ötzi was around 1.6 metres tall and in his mid 40s when he died. Speaking to Science+Nature, archaeologist Lars Pilo said that Ötzi was an “astounding find” and thinks that he would look pretty normal today.

Mountain murder

Scientists originally thought Ötzi had died in an accident in the mountains or he had fled to the area and froze to death in the gully. Then, almost 10 years after his discovery, a CT scan (a machine that uses X-rays to reveal hidden details) found an arrowhead in his left shoulder. This showed that he was shot in the back with an arrow. Could it have been murder? The arrow would have cut a major artery and “he would have bled to death within just a couple of minutes,” Pilo says. Experts decided removing the arrowhead would damage the mummy too much so Ötzi’s murder weapon is still inside him.

Fresh evidence

Detectives use forensic science to crack some cases and so do experts hunting for clues about this prehistoric person. In 2023, researchers looking at his DNA (the building blocks of life) discovered Ötzi had darker skin than people originally thought and might have been bald.

They have even figured out what this ancient human ate for his last meal – information that helped them retrace his footsteps over his final few days. Pollen trapped in his stomach reveals he went back-and-forth between a valley to the south and the mountains he was found in.

Other research on the mummy reveals deep cuts to its hands. Experts think it might have been a fresh wound, just a few days old when he died. Doctors have also spotted a serious head injury, possibly from being hit… Could Ötzi have been running from someone who shot him in the back?

All of these things tell us more about the person Ötzi was.

Defrosting the truth

After 35 years of detective work, this cold case is far from closed and lots of mysteries remain unsolved. We may never know exactly what happened to Ötzi. Was he ambushed by strangers or killed by someone he knew?

Ötzi’s real name and many of the details of his life have been lost to time, but glaciers melt and re-freeze. So fresh evidence may still emerge from the ice. However, the Iceman keeps providing new clues that tell us more about how people lived in prehistoric times.

Also

Ötzi now lives at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy. Museum guide Laura De Bacci told Science+Nature that he’s kept in a special, sterile chamber at -6ºC. Because he is a “damp mummy” and still has liquid in his cells, the environment also needs to be damp. Filtered air keeps out bacteria and a scale measures his weight 24/7 to make sure he stays well preserved.

If you want to visit him, you can. Laura says his body is “slightly hidden away” on the first floor of the museum but you can peek through a very small window to see him laying in a room made of ice.

First published in The Week Junior Science+Nature, issue 101, June 2026.