After hikers discovered a body protruding from melting glacier ice in September 1991, initial assumptions held it was a modern mountaineering casualty. Radiocarbon dating results returned in the following weeks stunned scientists: the remains, nicknamed Ötzi, dated to roughly 3300 BC, making it the oldest and best-preserved human mummy ever found in Europe, complete with tattoos, tools, and clothing intact.
When German tourists Helmut and Erika Simon spotted a brownish body emerging from glacial ice near the Similaun mountain in September 1991, authorities assumed they had stumbled on a recent accident victim, one of the many climbers lost in the treacherous Ötztal Alps over the decades. Recovery efforts were, at first, almost careless, involving a jackhammer that damaged part of the remains before anyone grasped what they had found.
It was only after the body was transported to Innsbruck and examined by archaeologist Konrad Spindler that its true significance emerged. Radiocarbon analysis, results of which became widely known around this time in late November 1991, dated the man to approximately 3300 BC, roughly 5,300 years old, placing him firmly in the Copper Age.
Ötzi arrived with an astonishing trove of intact belongings: a copper axe, a flint knife, a quiver of arrows, woven grass cape, and even preserved tattoos on his skin. Later analysis revealed he died from an arrow wound to the shoulder, and his stomach contents even preserved his last meal. Ötzi remains one of archaeology's richest windows into prehistoric daily life.