The Iceman Was Unique, We Thought. But Others Could Follow

The hikers who stumbled onto a frozen mummy in Europe in 1991 must have been shocked.

Archaeologists are studying the 5,200-year-old murder victim, tzi the Iceman, to find out more about him.

The Neolithic mummy was thought to have been preserved by a freak event that happened after he was killed by an arrow, and he was encased in a glacier.

Archaeologists from the Department of Cultural Heritage at the Innlandet County Council in Norway now believe that there is no truth to the rumor.

Europe's oldest natural human mummy is called tzi. He has been researching since he discovered. We now know what he wore, what he had tattooed on his body, what his last meal was, and how he sounded.

Pil and team argue that tzi would have been better preserved if he had been continuously frozen after his death.

The skin on the back of his neck had fallen off and left his back naked, but his lower half is still pristine.

Pil and colleagues have concluded that the damage to the artifact found with the frozen mummy is consistent with something that could happen after the materials were deposited.

The artifacts found with tzi suggest that they occur during ice melt tumblings or the forces created by sliding ice.

Evidence shows that the upper part of the body was exposed before the discovery.

As the man's belongings were scattered up to 6 meters away, it's possible that he didn't die where he was later found. The man was swept into the gully by the meltwater after he was buried by the spring snow.

In their paper, Pil and team say that tzi and his artifacts were exposed in the 1,500 years after his death.

The researchers were able to see tzi's circumstances in a new way because of the increased knowledge.

A string of special circumstances is not required for the preservation of this type of find, and relevant locations are now affected by heavy melt events.

Climate change has exposed the remains of people who have been buried for decades, like bears and wooly rhinos.

Waiting for the thaw, who knows what else is underneath.

This was published in a journal.