| Transcript |
| · | Introduction |
| 0:14 | · | PATRICK HUNT: He's the oldest human specimen we have that is so complete. So well preserved. AARON DETER-WOLF: He continues to generate this body of information. |
| 0:21 | · | HUNT: He may well be the most studied human being in history. |
| 0:27 | · | NARRATOR: The Iceman. HUNT: He was found in a glacier, frozen in time for 5,000 years. |
| 0:34 | · | NARRATOR: An ancient murder mystery... Ready to go? What can we learn from him? |
| 0:40 | · | What is his story? We figured he was probably Italian. Wrong. Eastern European? North African? |
| 0:46 | · | Wrong, wrong, wrong. Where's this guy from? NARRATOR: Scientists search for answers hidden in his genetic code... |
| 0:53 | · | CARLOS BUSTAMANTE: We're rewriting the history of humankind. NARRATOR: As an artist brings him back to life. |
| 1:00 | · | When they believe that it's real, then I have done my job. NARRATOR: Science and art join to share the Iceman and his secrets |
| 1:09 | · | with the world. GARY STAAB: We have to turn this thing from plastic to flesh. |
| 1:16 | · | NARRATOR: "Iceman Reborn," right now, on NOVA. |
| 1:36 | · | Major funding for NOVA is provided by the following... ANNOUNCER: Sailing a river through the heart of cities and landscapes with Viking |
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| 2:12 | · | (alarm ringing) NARRATOR: In a custom-built lab, a team of doctors suits up. |
| 2:19 | · | Strict precautions are taken. Okay. NARRATOR: Because this is a very unusual case. |
| 2:27 | · | The patient has been dead for over 5,000 years. |
| 2:36 | · | This is Ötzi, the Iceman.... |
| 2:41 | · | one of the oldest and best preserved intact human bodies ever found. |
| 2:52 | · | The story of Ötzi's discovery is still one of the most astounding in human history. |
| 3:00 | · | 1991-- on a 10,000-foot glacier near the border of Austria and Italy, |
| 3:06 | · | two hikers come across the body of a man face down in the ice. |
| 3:13 | · | They have no idea the importance of what they've stumbled upon. |
| 3:19 | · | Perhaps it's a mountaineer, or even a lost soldier from World War I. |
| 3:27 | · | But as they pull the remains from the ice, capturing the recovery on video, |
| 3:32 | · | certain clues point to a different story-- a knife made of stone; |
| 3:40 | · | a shoe made of grass; a quiver of arrows; |
| 3:46 | · | leather leggings; a copper ax. Carbon dating later reveals that the body |
| 3:55 | · | and the items found with it have been preserved in the mountain ice |
| 4:01 | · | for over 5,000 years. |
| 4:08 | · | Ötzi becomes not only an international sensation but also a scientific treasure. |
| 4:16 | · | He's the oldest human specimen we have that is so complete, so well preserved. |
| 4:21 | · | With all the scientific disciplines that are intrigued by him, that want answers, |
| 4:26 | · | he may well be the most studied human being in history. |
| 4:34 | · | NARRATOR: Now, new technology is yielding more clues, revealing surprising secrets |
| 4:40 | · | about this mysterious ancient man and the world he lived in, |
| 4:45 | · | from the strange markings that cover his body |
| 4:50 | · | to the DNA in his bones. Researchers are trying to use his genetic code to uncover |
| 4:57 | · | his true origins, to track down his relatives, alive, even today, |
| 5:05 | · | and help solve long-standing mysteries about how people lived at the end of the Stone Age. |
| 5:14 | · | Ötzi provides a window into what life looked like 5,000 years ago in Europe. |
| 5:19 | · | So it's kind of like finding the Ark of the Covenant. How important is that? Yeah, it's pretty important. |
| 5:26 | · | NARRATOR: The clues begin with Ötzi himself. At the time of his death, he was about 45 years old, 5'2" tall, |
| 5:37 | · | weighing about 110 pounds. |
| 5:43 | · | New research deciphering Ötzi's genetic code reveals he had brown eyes, dark hair, and had both Lyme disease |
| 5:54 | · | and a predisposition to heart disease. |
| 5:59 | · | But that's not what killed him on the mountain. |
| 6:04 | · | At first, it was thought that the Iceman had frozen to death in a storm and been buried in the snow. |
| 6:18 | · | But a radiologist reviewing his x-rays spotted something strange |
| 6:23 | · | that had escaped everyone else's notice: an arrowhead lodged deep in the Iceman's shoulder. |
| 6:32 | · | ALBERT ZINK: The arrowhead was detected in 2001. And then the question was did the arrowhead kill him or not? |
| 6:40 | · | NARRATOR: CT or CAT scans of the body revealing Ötzi's internal anatomy in amazing detail |
| 6:47 | · | provided more clues. We could reconstruct then the area where the arrow entered the body and disrupted a major artery of the left arm. |
| 6:56 | · | If you're losing so much blood, after ten to 15 minutes you are dead. |
| 7:01 | · | From this, we knew that he was killed by this arrow shot. |
| 7:08 | · | NARRATOR: Shot and left to die on the mountain. The mystery was deepening. |
| · | 3D Printing Model of Otzi the Iceman |
| 7:17 | · | Who was Ötzi? What did he do for a living? |
| 7:23 | · | Who were his people? And why was he killed? |
| 7:35 | · | The answers will not be easy to find because Ötzi's condition is so delicate. |
| 7:42 | · | Ötzi has spent years locked in a freezer at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology. |
| 7:48 | · | His cell, kept at a chilly 19 degrees, is designed |
| 7:54 | · | to protect him from potentially destructive microbes. No one enters the sterile environment |
| 8:02 | · | except Ötzi's doctors. ZINK: The Iceman is kept under sterile condition in this refrigeration cell. |
| 8:09 | · | And that's why we have to take care who's entering the cell, because we want to avoid that anybody brings in |
| 8:15 | · | any kind of contamination. (alarm ringing) Yeah, ready to go. |
| 8:21 | · | NARRATOR: Today an exception has been made for an artist named Gary Staab. |
| 8:27 | · | Gary has been charged with a difficult mission-- to sculpt an exact replica of the Iceman, |
| 8:35 | · | a copy that will be accessible to researchers and to the public |
| 8:40 | · | who can't get close to the real thing. We cannot allow everybody entering the cell |
| 8:45 | · | who has maybe a certain research question to inspect the mummy. We want to make a good copy people can use to see, |
| 8:52 | · | to get very close, to get data which cannot be done with the original mummy, it's always really a risk. |
| 8:59 | · | STAAB: Nail bed, pinky, nine millimeters. NARRATOR: Gary has limited time to take in all the details of this rare and unique human body. |
| 9:07 | · | STAAB: I am soaking in every single detail I can lay my eyes on. NARRATOR: He must create the most accurate replica possible: |
| 9:14 | · | Ötzi's twin. STAAB: Right index, five millimeters. NARRATOR: He evaluates Ötzi's skin tone and texture... |
| 9:23 | · | STAAB: The keratin has fallen off the nailbeds. NARRATOR: His distorted face... |
| 9:28 | · | STAAB: That cartilage is so, so thin. NARRATOR: His ravaged hip... EDUARD EGARTER-VIGL: Yes, you have a very big defect |
| 9:34 | · | of soft tissues and bone tissues. STAAB: Because of the damage, this will be very difficult to replicate. |
| 9:40 | · | NARRATOR: In the process of getting every detail just right, Gary will have to learn all he can |
| 9:46 | · | about the Iceman and his times-- how he lived, died, and became mummified. |
| 9:53 | · | STAAB: What is his story? What can we learn from him, and how can he enrich our understanding of the past? |
| 9:58 | · | Okay? STAAB: Very good. NARRATOR: Dr. Eduard Egarter-Vigl calls an end to Gary's visit. |
| 10:05 | · | Any more thawing and the Iceman could be in danger of bacterial contamination. |
| 10:11 | · | STAAB: Absolutely amazing. That was the fastest 30 minutes of my life. |
| 10:16 | · | This very intimate moment with the mummy will be very helpful in the final product. |
| 10:21 | · | It will be so much better because of that. NARRATOR: With Ötzi safe in his sterile crypt, |
| 10:29 | · | Gary will begin to bring his body double to life. To start, the CT scans that helped determine |
| 10:38 | · | Ötzi's cause of death will provide a detailed blueprint for the Iceman's twin |
| 10:44 | · | thanks to a remarkable technology... |
| 10:49 | · | 3D printing. Ötzi will literally be printed out in three dimensions. |
| 10:56 | · | HERLIEN DECLERCK: We use our software to transform the CT images into a 3D model that you can print. |
| 11:04 | · | NARRATOR: Special software converts the data into a stack of over 2,000 horizontal slices, |
| 11:11 | · | creating a blueprint of Ötzi's body. This is then fed into a computer, |
| 11:17 | · | which controls a gigantic five-foot by 18-foot machine known as "the Mammoth." |
| 11:25 | · | They have the ability to create the entire print in one piece, which is very rare. |
| 11:30 | · | NARRATOR: In this enormous vat, 350 gallons of liquid resin the consistency of warm honey |
| 11:38 | · | will be transformed into a life-size plastic model of the Iceman. |
| 11:46 | · | The computer guides lasers around a thin layer of liquid resin. |
| 11:52 | · | We use a laser to trace out cross sections of Ötzi and under UV lights the polymer starts to harden. |
| 12:00 | · | Once it solidifies, just a few seconds, a very thin layer is positioned on top of it and the laser hardens it out again |
| 12:07 | · | and this way the model is built layer by layer. |
| 12:12 | · | NARRATOR: For nearly three days, the lasers continue their work, little by little, until every small bump and hollow |
| 12:21 | · | on the surface of the Iceman's body is present and accounted for. STAAB: This is very exciting. |
| 12:27 | · | We're using the newest technologies to three-dimensionally print the oldest wet mummy ever found. |
| 12:39 | · | NARRATOR: Finally, it's time to reveal the 3D print. Oh my gosh, this is fantastic. |
| 12:46 | · | NARRATOR: Transformed from liquid to solid. The face details are beautiful. |
| 12:52 | · | That is absolutely fantastic. NARRATOR: Ötzi's body has been reconstructed |
| 12:58 | · | as one extremely detailed hollow piece of plastic. STAAB: Beautifully translucent but it still captures |
| 13:05 | · | all the forms and the shapes. |
| 13:12 | · | NARRATOR: As the model emerges, the Iceman is reborn. |
| 13:18 | · | STAAB: Ötzi coming out of this resin was kind of overwhelming. Because slowly his face was revealed, |
| 13:23 | · | his feet were revealed, his ribcage. And it was super exciting to know |
| 13:29 | · | that that three-dimensional print was at such a high resolution, I really have something to work with. |
| 13:37 | · | NARRATOR: It is on this plastic Ötzi that Gary will sculpt the life-like version. |
| 13:44 | · | STAAB: It's a treat to see it in one color because there's nothing distracting your eye. |
| 13:49 | · | I'm also looking at anatomical features that correspond to the structures that I saw in the freezer. |
| · | Who Was Otzi the Iceman? |
| 13:55 | · | NARRATOR: While Gary reviews Ötzi's plastic form, scientists continue to hunt down clues |
| 14:02 | · | about the flesh-and-blood man. NARRATOR: For Albert Zink, who oversees research on the mummy, |
| 14:11 | · | Ötzi's CT scans are especially valuable because a look at Ötzi's muscles and joints can tell us a lot |
| 14:19 | · | about his life and lifestyle, perhaps even how he made a living. |
| 14:25 | · | The two main ways of life 5,300 years ago were farming and hunting and gathering. |
| 14:32 | · | ZINK: You can reconstruct the muscles, the muscle structure, how the muscles are attached at the bones. We just could extract all this from the CT scans. |
| 14:39 | · | NARRATOR: Zink notices Ötzi did not show signs of strain |
| 14:44 | · | in his upper body muscles and joints. That might rule out farming. |
| 14:50 | · | ZINK: In his upper part, in his shoulders, in the arms and hands, there is almost nothing, and for a man which was about 40 to 50 years old |
| 14:58 | · | in this time period, we would expect some changes if he had worked with his hands. NARRATOR: The scans do indicate severe damage in the muscles and joints |
| 15:08 | · | of his legs and back, which suggests he was a constant traveler. |
| 15:15 | · | Also, the mummy's knee and hip joints are missing a lot of their cartilage-- |
| 15:21 | · | a painful condition called arthrosis, a kind of arthritis caused by wear and tear. |
| 15:29 | · | The physical facts of the Iceman were that he had lower back problems. The same is true for the knee. |
| 15:35 | · | We know he had some arthrosis of the knee joints, and this caused pain from time to time. |
| 15:41 | · | NARRATOR: Ötzi died in the mountains and he likely spent much of his life there, too. |
| 15:48 | · | We know from his physical appearance that he was walking a lot, that he maybe was carrying some heavy things. |
| 15:53 | · | So maybe he was trading something. It could be that he was really traveling a lot. But we cannot really say what was his role in society. |
| 16:04 | · | NARRATOR: Searching for even more evidence about this enigmatic man, scientists perform a kind of autopsy on Ötzi. |
| 16:12 | · | They remove specimens from inside his most culturally sensitive organ... |
| 16:19 | · | This is stomach here. NARRATOR: His stomach. And they are able to extract Ötzi's last meal, |
| 16:27 | · | eaten only hours before his death. Some of the contents point to Ötzi being a hunter. |
| 16:34 | · | DOCTOR: So much material from the stomach now. BUSTAMANTE: He had wild ibex meat in his stomach, |
| 16:39 | · | so he was clearly hunting for part of his sustenance. He also had einkorn wheat. |
| 16:44 | · | Einkorn wheat has to come from farming. It's this classical kind of interesting mystery. |
| 16:51 | · | Ötzi's sending us mixed messages about how he's living his life. |
| 16:59 | · | NARRATOR: In addition to food, researchers also found different kinds of pollen in the Iceman's stomach. |
| 17:05 | · | This revealed that Ötzi had been traveling up and down the mountain within the last 48 hours of his life. |
| 17:13 | · | Ötzi seems to have been a man on the move whose adventures came to a violent end. |
| · | Sculpting Otzi the Iceman's Skin |
| 17:25 | · | More than 5,000 years later, Ötzi's twin is on a journey of its own |
| 17:32 | · | across the Atlantic Ocean, all the way to Kearney, Missouri, in the American heartland. |
| 17:40 | · | Here, Gary Staab brings ancient fossils back to life. |
| 17:47 | · | He is a master model maker, and over the years he has been commissioned to build replicas |
| 17:54 | · | of dozens of extinct creatures for museums around the world. |
| 18:01 | · | He has fashioned prehistoric fish, sculpted life-size dinosaurs, and crafted giant crocodiles. |
| 18:08 | · | STAAB: I've spent entirely way too much time on the inside of large animals. NARRATOR: From the miniature to the monstrous, |
| 18:15 | · | whether it swims, crawls, or flies, Gary's job is to resurrect the long dead. |
| 18:23 | · | STAAB: So the fascinating fact is that 99% of all life that has ever existed |
| 18:28 | · | on earth is extinct. So, I follow floods. I follow volcanic eruptions, mass death events. |
| 18:36 | · | I'm a bit of an ambulance chaser, but I'm just a little bit late. Maybe a few thousand years late. |
| 18:43 | · | In some cases, 50 or 60 million years late. NARRATOR: Gary's investigations-- all to better understand his subjects |
| 18:51 | · | and the worlds they lived in-- have taken him around the globe, from exotic excavation sites to ancient fossil fields. |
| 19:01 | · | STAAB: Most of the time my job is to sculpt animals for museums. And we only have their bones. |
| 19:07 | · | We only have fossils. So I have to take something that no one is exactly sure what it looked like, and try and breathe life into it. |
| 19:15 | · | This is a neat situation; we know exactly what Iceman looks like. So my job is to replicate him exactly as he looks right now. |
| 19:25 | · | What's in here? NARRATOR: Now Gary faces one of the biggest challenges |
| 19:30 | · | of his career: creating the exact replica of Ötzi the Iceman. |
| 19:40 | · | It's like Neolithic Christmas. NARRATOR: The plastic model generated by the 3D printer |
| 19:46 | · | has just arrived in his studio. STAAB: It was an amazing feeling to finally lift him |
| 19:51 | · | out of the crate and take him onto the table. By the time we're finished, we will work thousand of hours. |
| 19:57 | · | NARRATOR: 3D printing technology has provided the artist with a good head start-- |
| 20:02 | · | a model with physical dimensions exact to the millimeter. It's a perfect match to the shape of the Iceman, |
| 20:11 | · | but the surface of the model is not detailed enough to create a believable replica. |
| 20:17 | · | We've got a lot of work ahead of us. NARRATOR: Gary and his team will need to sculpt Ötzi |
| 20:24 | · | the old-fashioned way-- all by hand. STAAB: There is not one centimeter |
| 20:30 | · | of this thing that isn't complicated. It's going to be very hard. |
| 20:36 | · | NARRATOR: It will be a four-part process. Sculpting, molding, painting, |
| 20:43 | · | and crafting minute surface details will take Gary and his team months to complete. |
| 20:50 | · | STAAB: The challenges are many. We have not only the elements of the skin texture, |
| 20:56 | · | we have the detail of the face. We have the detail of the hands. And we have to figure out how to replicate the hips. |
| 21:02 | · | The hip is going to be very challenging to do. You guys start on this end and work your way up |
| 21:08 | · | and I'll start on the head and then I'll meet you somewhere in the middle, I hope. NARRATOR: The first step: darken the mummy's body |
| 21:15 | · | to better reveal the exact contours of the 3D print. STAAB: We can't actually read the surface when it's translucent. |
| 21:22 | · | So we take a very dark and penetrating stain and we paint it over the top of the three-dimensional print. |
| 21:28 | · | It allows us to see the surface in a much better way. So we can read those shapes, and then actually make judgments |
| 21:35 | · | on how we're going to sculpt the surface based on what we see. There are thousands of considerations-- |
| 21:42 | · | not hundreds, thousands of considerations, that have to be taken into account for while you are doing this. |
| 21:48 | · | NARRATOR: Next, Gary replicates Ötzi's skin with especially malleable modeling clay. |
| 21:56 | · | As the thin clay bonds to the resin, Gary and his team sculpt every detail |
| 22:02 | · | of the mummy's surface texture, inch by inch. |
| 22:08 | · | Getting Ötzi's skin just right is one of the main challenges for Gary and his crew. |
| 22:14 | · | We have to turn this thing from plastic to flesh. NARRATOR: Human skin is actually an organ-- the largest we have. |
| 22:24 | · | On average, it takes about 20 square feet of skin to cover a human body. |
| 22:30 | · | It will take hundreds of hours to replicate Ötzi's complex mummified surface. |
| 22:38 | · | Pick out some of these that might work well and then run some samples. NARRATOR: Gary relies on texture pads |
| 22:46 | · | to press patterns into Ötzi's clay skin. STAAB: I have hundreds of textures in a box. I pulled them out to see which ones might match. |
| 22:52 | · | NARRATOR: These flexible rubber patches create varied imprints on the wet clay. |
| 22:57 | · | Human skin has three layers. The epidermis, or outer layer, |
| 23:04 | · | acts as a waterproof wrapping and a guard against infection. It also determines our skin color. |
| 23:12 | · | The next layer, the dermis, is made up of tough connective tissue, along with nerve endings, |
| 23:18 | · | hair follicles, and sweat glands. Finally, the deep hypodermis |
| 23:24 | · | consists of subcutaneous fat and more connective tissue. Gary and his team are sculpting |
| 23:31 | · | the second layer of Ötzi's skin-- the dermis. Most of the outer layer was lost to the mountain. |
| 23:38 | · | (translated): If you look at the skin of this mummy, you have to realize that |
| 23:43 | · | this body has been lying in ice for years. The ice isn't always stable, |
| 23:50 | · | so in summer, the ice melts into water. If it's in water for too long, |
| 23:56 | · | the upper layer of the skin, the epidermis, separates and you lose it. |
| 24:02 | · | The layers underneath, the dermis and the subcutaneous layer, remain preserved. |
| 24:09 | · | A lot of hair, fingernails, and toenails have been lost. NARRATOR: Enough of the Iceman's skin, |
| · | How Are Mummies Preserved? |
| 24:16 | · | along with soft tissue and muscle, has been preserved to make Ötzi a true mummy. |
| 24:23 | · | For Gary, Ötzi is not the first mummy he has replicated, but certainly one of the most unique. |
| 24:31 | · | Mummies can be created naturally or artificially. |
| 24:36 | · | Artificial mummies, like those from ancient Egypt, were made by intentionally blocking the decaying process. |
| 24:45 | · | The important thing during mummification is that it happens immediately. So the natural process is the degradation |
| 24:51 | · | or the decomposition of a body, so it has to be stopped immediately. NARRATOR: This was the case for one of the most famous mummies of all: |
| 24:58 | · | the Egyptian pharaoh King Tutankhamun. He was embalmed and then coated in a black resin-like liquid |
| 25:07 | · | that encased and preserved his skin. But in natural mummies like Ötzi, |
| 25:15 | · | or those discovered on mountaintops in the Andes, or bog bodies found buried in peat, |
| 25:24 | · | the environment alone preserves the body. ZINK: The Iceman is a natural mummy. |
| 25:31 | · | He was naturally captured in the ice. And he's also a humid mummy, |
| 25:36 | · | so he still contains some water in his tissue that makes him also so difficult to preserve. |
| 25:42 | · | NARRATOR: It is luck that Ötzi was preserved at all. |
| 25:47 | · | He was nearly lost forever. Fortunately, his body lay in a small trench, |
| 25:54 | · | protected by large rocks on two sides. This trench eventually filled in with ten feet of snow and ice, |
| 26:04 | · | preventing the Iceman from being swept into the deadly frozen current that flowed around it. |
| 26:10 | · | ZINK: This makes him also quite unique. He's one of a few ice mummies that exist at all, and he's the only natural ice mummy we have |
| 26:18 | · | in the Alpine region. NARRATOR: The ice preserved Ötzi, |
| 26:23 | · | but the great weight of the glacier eventually flattened his body, creating the ultra-lean frame that Gary is now duplicating. |
| 26:35 | · | After weeks of work, the replica is covered in a layer of white clay |
| 26:41 | · | that matches the texture of Ötzi's body. But in order for Gary to finish the face, |
| 26:48 | · | he must remove Ötzi's head. STAAB: It's much easier to sculpt away from the body. |
| 26:53 | · | So you have to bring it to where you can focus, get exactly in a zone where physically, |
| 26:58 | · | you can work on it for that length of time and not get ultra-fatigued. NARRATOR: Ötzi's face presents a particular challenge. |
| 27:05 | · | STAAB: This will be the thing that everyone looks at. They'll engage it in the face, in the eyes, |
| 27:11 | · | and that's where they will spend most of their time. This is where he will become a person to them. |
| 27:16 | · | He has a really wild-looking face. It's a bit grotesque in some ways. |
| 27:22 | · | His lip is actually pushed up here because he was lying face down on a rock, and that pressure on his face and over his nose. |
| 27:29 | · | The nose is so difficult to tease out the details of what's actually happening there-- you know, what am I actually seeing, |
| 27:35 | · | what's doing what-- so that it can be correct. It's entirely possible |
| 27:41 | · | I will know his face better than his mother did. |
| 27:46 | · | NARRATOR: After months of sculpting, molding, and crafting the exact details of the Iceman, |
| 27:55 | · | Gary has reached the most visible stage in his process. |
| 28:00 | · | STAAB: I'm at a very exciting point. NARRATOR: The paint. STAAB: Finally, I can actually put color on. |
| 28:09 | · | Painting is a very fun part of this process, and it's very fun to see this come to life through color. |
| · | Otzi the Iceman's Tattoos |
| 28:14 | · | NARRATOR: From the rims of his eyes to the tips of his toes, Gary must match every inch of Ötzi's skin to the original... |
| 28:26 | · | ...including the mummy's mysterious markings... |
| 28:34 | · | Many sets of parallel lines... |
| 28:39 | · | ...and two crosses. These are Ötzi's tattoos. |
| 28:47 | · | The Iceman is the oldest tattooed mummy ever discovered. STAAB: It's complicated because there's so many. |
| 28:53 | · | Yes, he's covered with a lot of tattoos. NARRATOR: Researcher Marco Samadelli has been one of Ötzi's caretakers |
| 29:00 | · | for nearly 20 years. How did you catalogue each one of these? NARRATOR: Recently, Marco set out |
| 29:07 | · | to inventory every tattoo on Ötzi's skin. We discovered exactly 61 tattoos. |
| 29:14 | · | STAAB: That's a lot of ink. (translated): It's difficult to see the tattoos |
| 29:20 | · | on a 5,000-year-old mummy. |
| 29:26 | · | NARRATOR: Marco's research revealed something no one had ever seen before, |
| 29:32 | · | thanks to a unique camera sensitive to invisible light. |
| 29:37 | · | (translated): Multispectral imaging is a technique used to see what the eye can't see. |
| 29:43 | · | It's with this we discovered every single detail, even under the surface of the mummy's skin. |
| 29:51 | · | NARRATOR: The exact number and location of all the tattoos was a mystery until now. |
| 29:59 | · | (translated): We discovered a tattoo that had never been seen before: four parallel lines on the right side of his chest. |
| 30:08 | · | We were able to locate all his tattoos and obtain a complete mapping. |
| 30:15 | · | AARON DETER-WOLF: 61 tattoos arranged in 19 groups across his body. |
| 30:21 | · | NARRATOR: Archaeologist Aaron Deter-Wolf studies the use of tattoos in ancient cultures. |
| 30:27 | · | DETER-WOLF: Tattooing has been practiced throughout a huge portion of human history going back at least 16,000 or 18,000 years before present. |
| 30:35 | · | During that time period, people have been tattooed for all sorts of different reasons depending on their culture and the region in which they lived. |
| 30:42 | · | NARRATOR: Aaron has come to Gary's studio to demonstrate how and why |
| 30:49 | · | he believes Ötzi's tattoos may have been made. We're going to take a piece of pigskin, |
| 30:54 | · | which is a proxy for human skin, and we're going to use these reproduction tools |
| 30:59 | · | to tattoo that skin in the same patterns that are on Ötzi's body. |
| 31:05 | · | NARRATOR: Aaron thinks Ötzi's tattoos were most likely created with a technique that was widespread in the ancient world: |
| 31:11 | · | by using a sharp needle, probably made from bone, to puncture the skin and push ink, |
| 31:18 | · | made from charcoal, into the tiny shallow wounds. |
| 31:24 | · | DETER-WOLF: What you want to do is just dip the tip of the tool, and then you're just going to go in very, very shallowly. |
| 31:32 | · | NARRATOR: Microscopic and chemical analysis reveals that the dark lines are made primarily of carbon, |
| 31:39 | · | along with bits of silica. DETER-WOLF: A composition most likely collected around the edge of a campfire. |
| 31:45 | · | STAAB: So what kind of depth? Less than a millimeter. You can feel the skin give. STAAB: Just a little tiny pop. |
| 31:52 | · | DETER-WOLF: That's moving through that epidermis, yep. STAAB: I thought it would be a little bit easier, but it takes hundreds and hundreds of punctures |
| 31:59 | · | to actually get a solid line. I am using the exact same stabbing technique |
| 32:06 | · | with a brush on the model. Looking at how difficult it was to create those tattoos on pigskin, |
| 32:12 | · | imagine the pain that Ötzi had to go through when he had his tattoos made. I wouldn't get a tattoo that way. |
| 32:20 | · | NARRATOR: So why would Ötzi endure this painful process not just once, but dozens of times? |
| 32:28 | · | DETER-WOLF: We generally agree that Ötzi's tattoos don't seem on the whole to be decorative or symbolic. |
| 32:35 | · | NARRATOR: For Aaron and other experts, a key clue to understanding the purpose of the tattoos |
| 32:42 | · | could be where they've been placed. DETER-WOLF: A number of Ötzi's tattoos seemed to correspond |
| 32:48 | · | to areas where he suffered from ailments or injuries. |
| 32:53 | · | He had arthritis in his lower back, and there are tattoos on his lower lumbar area. |
| 32:59 | · | He had arthritis in his right knee; there are tattoos on the back of his right knee. He had arthritis in his ankles; there are a number of tattoos |
| 33:05 | · | around both his right and left ankles. Most recently, this new set of tattoos |
| 33:13 | · | is located on his lower right abdomen. Among the many ailments that he suffered from |
| 33:18 | · | was gallstones and whipworms in his colon, and this is a place that is very close to those areas |
| 33:25 | · | and could potentially have been used to treat the pains he was experiencing. NARRATOR: Tattooing the skin to alleviate pain |
| 33:32 | · | has been the practice of many cultures. DETER-WOLF: There are therapeutic tattoo traditions |
| 33:37 | · | that have been documented all across the world: in India, in Southeast Asia, |
| 33:43 | · | in North America, in the American Arctic. NARRATOR: Ötzi's tattoos are the earliest direct evidence |
| 33:49 | · | of this ancient tradition. But the tattoos may not have been the only medicinal treatment Ötzi relied on. |
| · | The Significance of Mushrooms Carried by Otzi |
| 33:58 | · | In the woods of Upstate New York, archaeologist Patrick Hunt is tracking down wild mushrooms. |
| 34:07 | · | With the help of David Work, an expert in fungi, they're hunting for two varieties-- |
| 34:15 | · | the same ones that Ötzi carried with him 5,300 years ago. |
| 34:21 | · | This is very much like the forests that Ötzi would have known in the Tyrol, |
| 34:27 | · | where you've got mixed deciduous forests. Wow, that's a beautiful example. I can probably roll this over. |
| 34:34 | · | Maybe not. If you're carrying two different mushrooms, |
| 34:39 | · | you must have a pretty good idea they address different functions. NARRATOR: One mushroom, known as tinder fungus, |
| 34:47 | · | is often used to start fires. When dried, it ignites easily and burns for a long time. |
| 34:56 | · | The other kind of fungus, which Ötzi carried on leather straps, is called birch polypore. |
| 35:02 | · | I'm gonna harvest this one. NARRATOR: Most believe Ötzi was carrying this particular mushroom for another reason. |
| 35:08 | · | This white section here. NARRATOR: Its antiseptic power. HUNT: Take this mushroom, |
| 35:14 | · | peel off the spore layers, and you can put that directly on a wound. |
| 35:21 | · | It's antibacterial, it's antiviral... WORK: Here, I have a cut there. We'll put that there. And you can actually tie it around |
| 35:27 | · | with a piece of grass. |
| 35:33 | · | Band-Aid. You don't need bacterial agents because it's got it in the mushroom. It's already there. |
| 35:39 | · | Pretty cool. NARRATOR: In addition to the topical treatment, |
| 35:44 | · | Ötzi may have ingested the mushroom as a kind of Stone Age pain killer. |
| 35:50 | · | The peculiar thing is, it has the exact properties that act as remedies |
| 35:56 | · | to what Ötzi had wrong with him. It's been used in modern periods for some of these same functions, |
| 36:03 | · | but Ötzi is the oldest case on the record for anybody knowing this. |
| 36:10 | · | We thought that this was a relatively modern discovery. Obviously, it's been around for a long time. |
| · | Final Details of Otzi the Iceman Sculpture |
| 36:23 | · | NARRATOR: As Ötzi continues to challenge scientists and historians to revise their picture of the past, |
| 36:30 | · | Gary Staab is facing his own challenge in the reconstruction of the mummy's body. |
| 36:37 | · | Gary knew it would be a problem ever since his day in the freezer: |
| 36:43 | · | the Iceman's damaged hip, perhaps mauled by an animal scavenger after Ötzi's death. |
| 36:50 | · | EGARTER-VIGL: It's clear that the animals go to this part of the body. Scavenging. |
| 36:55 | · | Because it's a big attraction for the animals. STAAB: The hip is very, very complicated. |
| 37:02 | · | In fact, it's almost as complicated as making the entire mummy on its own. NARRATOR: While Gary's studio team makes hundreds of simulated tendons |
| 37:09 | · | from natural fibers that are frayed and dipped in paraffin, |
| 37:14 | · | Gary builds Ötzi's ravaged backside. STAAB: Because included in the complexity of this, |
| 37:20 | · | there's dried muscle overlaid by tendons, then you have frayed tendons up against bone, |
| 37:26 | · | the bone itself, the cancellous bone or the bone marrow inside of the bone that's fractured and torn apart, |
| 37:33 | · | and then you have the soft tissues that overlay the bone on this side, you've got lower bowel intestine that's exposed and broken |
| 37:41 | · | with bowel stomach contents inside of it, and then you have fat deposition in here. |
| 37:49 | · | So just this section alone has that many different finishes that have to be replicated, so this is by far |
| 37:55 | · | the most complicated project I've ever worked on. NARRATOR: It will take weeks to sculpt the Iceman's injured hip. |
| 38:03 | · | Meanwhile, scientists continue to search for Ötzi's true identity,\ |
| · | Analyzing Otzi's Genetic Code |
| 38:08 | · | investigating perhaps the most revealing evidence available: Iceman's genetic code. |
| 38:16 | · | CARLOS BUSTAMANTE: Genetics is giving us insights that we cannot get through any other means. NARRATOR: The genetic blueprint of every living thing is written in DNA. |
| 38:26 | · | It's made of four chemicals, abbreviated as A, C, G, and T. |
| 38:34 | · | These four letters, in a twisting double helix, are arranged into 23 pairs of chromosomes within each cell. |
| 38:43 | · | This is our biological code containing all the information to build and run our bodies. |
| 38:51 | · | Ötzi was one of the first ancient Europeans to have his entire code, or genome, analyzed. |
| 38:59 | · | It provided detailed clues to his appearance and health. |
| 39:05 | · | If you look at a particular gene on chromosome 15, it's the gene that most likely determines eye color. |
| 39:11 | · | If you see a pair of Gs at this position, that likely means that the person has blue eyes. |
| 39:17 | · | Whereas in the case of Ötzi, we see an A from both parents, and so that likely means that |
| 39:22 | · | he had dark-colored eyes. NARRATOR: On another chromosome, number 12, two Ts indicate that his hair was also dark. |
| 39:33 | · | Other chromosomes reveal new details. Ötzi had blood type O. |
| 39:39 | · | He even had a predisposition for arteriosclerosis-- heart disease, |
| 39:45 | · | often assumed to be associated with our modern lifestyle. The team also found DNA fragments |
| 39:53 | · | from the microbe that causes Lyme disease, making Ötzi the earliest known case. |
| 40:02 | · | But what about his origins? Who were Ötzi's ancestors? |
| 40:09 | · | BUSTAMANTE: The very cool thing about DNA is that changes in DNA literally make us who we are. |
| 40:16 | · | The material that we inherit from our mom and our dad |
| 40:21 | · | links us to all of our ancestors, and by comparing DNA across individuals in populations, |
| 40:27 | · | we can get a very rich picture of our ancestry: who are we related to, where did they come from? |
| 40:36 | · | NARRATOR: Finding answers is especially important because Ötzi dates to around the time |
| 40:41 | · | when prehistoric Europe was undergoing major changes, |
| 40:47 | · | as the ancient hunter-gatherer lifestyle was gradually displaced by farming. |
| 40:52 | · | BUSTAMANTE: Ötzi comes from an incredibly important period in European history, where we go from hunter- gatherers living in Europe |
| 41:00 | · | to the widespread adoption of farming. Because it's a transitional time period in which Ötzi lives, |
| 41:08 | · | there are huge life ways that converge, whether people are hunter-gatherers |
| 41:15 | · | or whether they're early farmers. He's in transition. His culture's in transition. |
| 41:21 | · | NARRATOR: 45,000 years ago, modern humans first began arriving in Europe. |
| 41:30 | · | They were hunter-gatherers, foraging plants and hunting wild game. |
| 41:38 | · | Then, about 7,000 years ago, everything began to change. |
| 41:44 | · | People in Europe began to cultivate crops for food. |
| 41:49 | · | And by about 5,000 years ago, the hunter-gatherer culture had almost completely disappeared from the continent. |
| 41:58 | · | It is one of the most revolutionary transformations in human history. |
| 42:07 | · | Where does Ötzi fit into this changing landscape? Did he come from a group of ancient hunter-gatherers |
| 42:16 | · | who still lived in pockets throughout Europe? Or were his people farmers |
| 42:22 | · | living a more settled life in the foothills of the Alps? Scientists turn to Ötzi's pre-historic artifacts |
| 42:29 | · | for more insight. HUNT: When you excavate or find someone who died 5,000 years ago, |
| 42:39 | · | usually, all you have left are the bones. What is so fantastic about Ötzi is that |
| 42:47 | · | because he was found in a glacier, because he was frozen in time for 5,000-plus years, |
| 42:56 | · | everything survives: his clothes, his tools. |
| 43:04 | · | NARRATOR: Among the items recovered from the glacier were a fur hat, patchwork leggings made of leather, |
| 43:11 | · | deerskin shoes stuffed with hay, a six-foot longbow, |
| 43:18 | · | a quiver that held over a dozen arrows. HUNT: If you want an arrow shaft, |
| 43:23 | · | you want the woods that he chose, cornel and viburnum. They grow very straight, |
| 43:29 | · | they're easily harvested, they're fairly prolific. NARRATOR: His expertly made weapons seem well suited for a man who hunted for his meals. |
| 43:38 | · | But other objects paint a different picture. |
| 43:43 | · | Ötzi's finely crafted copper ax, one of the oldest metal tools ever found in Europe, |
| 43:50 | · | points to a more advanced society-- one based on farming. |
| 43:56 | · | Could the Iceman's DNA help solve the mystery and determine whether Ötzi's people |
| 44:03 | · | were hunter-gatherers or farmers? To find out, researchers focus on mutations in the DNA, |
| 44:13 | · | random mistakes that can occur when the billions of chemicals that make up our genetic code-- |
| 44:18 | · | all those As, Ts, Gs, and Cs-- get copied. |
| 44:24 | · | BUSTAMANTE: The human genome is three billion base pairs long. Every once in a while, you get a mutation, |
| 44:30 | · | and that mutation sometimes ends up spreading. NARRATOR: These mutations help create specific patterns |
| 44:38 | · | of genetic variation in our DNA inherited from our parents. |
| 44:44 | · | The closer two people are related, the more of these patterns they'll have in common. |
| 44:51 | · | So whose DNA does Ötzi match best: the hunter-gatherers or the farmers? |
| 44:59 | · | BUSTAMANTE: The only way to get at that was to have other ancient samples from known farmers and known hunter-gatherers |
| 45:07 | · | from across Europe across different points in time. NARRATOR: They found the sample DNA |
| 45:14 | · | in the bones of dozens of ancient people excavated from archaeological sites all over Europe. |
| 45:21 | · | Some samples go back 45,000 years, when hunting was the only way of life. |
| 45:27 | · | Other samples were from 7,000-year-old farming sites. And the result? |
| 45:34 | · | Ötzi's DNA is a close match to that of ancient farmers, |
| 45:39 | · | not hunter-gatherers. BUSTAMANTE: It became pretty clear |
| 45:45 | · | that all of the individuals that we had labeled archaeologically as farmers |
| 45:52 | · | were closest to Ötzi. NARRATOR: Ötzi's DNA reveals that he was descended from farmers |
| 45:59 | · | who were in Europe nearly 2,000 years before he was born. |
| 46:04 | · | What's more, the same DNA patterns show up in even older bones found |
| 46:10 | · | in some of the earliest known farming sites in the world, in what is today Turkey. |
| 46:18 | · | This suggests that farmers migrated to Europe from Turkey, filling much of the continent. |
| 46:25 | · | Eventually, they pushed aside most of the hunter-gatherers and their DNA. |
| 46:33 | · | So where is Ötzi's DNA now? Could he have distant relatives alive even today? |
| 46:43 | · | Comparing his genome to modern DNA samples from all over Europe |
| 46:48 | · | would provide the answer. BUSTAMANTE: Who Ötzi really was genetically surprised us. |
| 46:57 | · | When we started analyzing the ancestry of Ötzi, we figured, "Ah, he was probably Italian." |
| 47:04 | · | Wrong-- didn't cluster with the Italians. Maybe he's Austrian? Wrong-- he didn't cluster with the Austrians. |
| 47:11 | · | Eastern European? Wrong. North African? Wrong, wrong, wrong. |
| 47:19 | · | So where's this guy from? And it turned out, much to our surprise, that his closest living relatives |
| 47:25 | · | were on the islands of Sardinia and Corsica. Totally unexpected. NARRATOR: Does this mean that Ötzi was Sardinian? |
| 47:34 | · | Not necessarily. Most likely, 5,300 years ago, when the Iceman was born, |
| 47:41 | · | most people in Europe, including Sardinians, carried similar patterns in their DNA |
| 47:48 | · | from the early farmer immigrants. But over the last 5,000 years, |
| 47:54 | · | Europe has seen wave after wave of new immigrants, adding new patterns of DNA to the mix. |
| 48:01 | · | Except on the isolated island of Sardinia. There, ever since the early farmers arrived, |
| 48:09 | · | the inhabitants and their DNA pattern have stayed relatively stable. |
| 48:15 | · | BUSTAMANTE: This wave of farmers that swept through Europe made it to Sardinia and stayed there |
| 48:21 | · | as a genetic snapshot of what that wave of immigration looked like. NARRATOR: This makes today's Sardinians Ötzi's closest living relatives. |
| · | Conclusion |
| 48:36 | · | Over the past five months, here at Gary's studio in Missouri, |
| 48:42 | · | the Iceman has undergone a complicated transformation. If they look at this and they believe that it's real, |
| 48:48 | · | then I've done my job, and we want only Ötzi to be the final product. It's just about Ötzi. |
| 48:56 | · | NARRATOR: Before the model is finished, its accuracy will be put to the ultimate test. |
| 49:01 | · | So good to see you. NARRATOR: When Albert Zink, who oversees the institute for mummies and the Iceman in Italy, |
| 49:08 | · | comes to examine Gary's work. STAAB: I'm absolutely petrified that he's here to see this |
| 49:14 | · | because he is the person who is the most familiar with the mummy. |
| 49:25 | · | My goal is to have him for one second be fooled that maybe he's actually looking at Ötzi. |
| 49:44 | · | I have to tell you something, it's really good. It's a really good work. I'm really very impressed. |
| 49:49 | · | It's really amazing. That's good. Wow, wow. ZINK: Some moments, I felt that |
| 49:56 | · | the mummy's outside of his freezer, it's too dangerous. But then I realized it's the replica. |
| 50:20 | · | You managed to give him this kind of expression that you still can feel somewhat that this was a human being, |
| 50:25 | · | somebody who lived very long ago. It's really a masterpiece. This is great for scholars because with this replica, |
| 50:34 | · | you can really explore in much more detail. In combination with all the other data we have, |
| 50:40 | · | I think this will bring us also a step forward in our research. |
| 50:46 | · | NARRATOR: With Albert Zink's approval, the time has come for Gary to share the replica with the world. |
| 50:53 | · | All right. NARRATOR: He's brought Ötzi to New York's Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, |
| 50:59 | · | one of the world's foremost genetic research institutes. For Gary, it's like dropping a child off |
| 51:07 | · | at the first day of school. STAAB: I'm a little bit nervous. It's been a really long road, |
| 51:13 | · | and it's a lot of work culminating with this day. |
| 51:18 | · | NARRATOR: For many years, the director of Cold Spring Harbor was James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA's double helix. |
| 51:27 | · | It's remarkable. JAMES WATSON: It was very exciting to get DNA |
| 51:33 | · | from 5,000 years ago. NARRATOR: Ötzi could never have known that how he lived and died |
| 51:40 | · | would intrigue and inspire future generations. BOY: It looks like he's looking at you. |
| 51:46 | · | NARRATOR: Like these students, some of whom have been studying him for years. |
| 51:52 | · | Ötzi is a great example of how DNA can help us learn about the past. He's awesome, coolest dead guy in the world. |
| 52:01 | · | BUSTAMANTE: What's incredible about the Ötzi story is that as technology's gotten better and better, it's the gift that keeps on giving. |
| 52:08 | · | We can keep going back to the sample, and it yields new mysteries and new insights |
| 52:13 | · | into both human history and into Ötzi himself. |
| 52:21 | · | NARRATOR: Ötzi was a man on the move until an arrow ended his journey through life. |
| 52:29 | · | But his death on the mountain would ultimately take him much farther than he could ever have imagined, |
| 52:36 | · | and make him one of the most famous and fascinating humans |
| 52:43 | · | who ever walked the earth. |
