Replies

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
07:16 3D Printing Model of Otzi the Iceman
13:55 Who Was Otzi the Iceman?
17:24 Sculpting Otzi the Iceman's Skin
24:13 How Are Mummies Preserved?
28:14 Otzi the Iceman's Tattoos
33:58 The Significance of Mushrooms Carried by Otzi
36:22 Final Details of Otzi the Iceman Sculpture
38:04 Analyzing Otzi's Genetic Code
48:34 Conclusion

© 2016 WGBH Educational Foundation
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.
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2:04 · Learn more at Viking.com.
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.