Scientists identify 5,300 year-old sinew bowstring used by Otzi the Iceman

Telegraph UK ^ | 18 December 2019 | Nick Squires

[dp0622]

So instead of making the tokens they just printed clay tablets backed by nothing!! :)

They actually DID represent something of value then.

Fascinating story and I NEVER heard it before.

And it reads like a logical progression.

[bgill]

It sometimes takes a while to identify items found in the back of my freezer, too.

[bgill]

Cursive writing is still out of the comprehension of some.

[Georgia Girl 2]

From the picture he was probably only about 25 years old. 😆

[faucetman]

Scientists? took over 30 years to surmise that a length of cord, made from sinew, found in his arrow quiver, MIGHT be a bow string.

How to milk that grant money.

[faucetman]

It was suicide! He shot HIMSELF in the back with a bow and arrow. /s

[Larry Lucido]

An inscription on the bow says “Otzstein didn’t kill himself.”

[SunkenCiv]

It wasn't trivial to figure out, and the item is a one of a kind, so the method or methods to be used had to be tested to make sure it wouldn't damage or destroy the sample and show no result.

[Flag_This]

"It is two metres long, almost exactly the same length as the bow ... the Copper Age hunter's bow had been freshly-cut from a yew tree.

I guess the "English" (Welsh) longbow has been around for a while.

[SunkenCiv]

:^) Sure, but did Otzi use as many consonants describing it? The yew hasn't changed much, its usefulness may have been handed down, or been rediscovered many times.

[Rockingham]

And a hefty dose of street drugs.

[Rockingham]

That was the beginning of abstract, symbolic reasoning. Contrary to the simplified version usually taught in high school biology, the environment can change genetic expression, which can then be passed on to succeeding generations. This so-called non-Mendelian inheritance may include more than a little of what is thought of as intelligence, character, and culture.

[Red Badger]

Experts had long speculated that the two objects were connected but definitive proof has now been obtained by a team of Swiss scientists.

Duh, it only took how many years?...................