'Iceman' Discovery Wasn't a Freak Event. More Frozen Mummies May Await

In 2001 Slashdot ran a story about a 5,100-year-old "ice mummy" discovered in the Alps. But now researchers are arguing that our assumptions about how weather, climate, and glacial ice conspired to preserve it were all wrong. Science magazine reports:In 1991, hikers in the Alps came across a sensational find: a human body, partially encased in ice, at the top of a mountain pass between Italy and Austria. Police called to the scene initially assumed the man had died in a mountaineering accident, but within weeks archaeologists were arguing he was actually the victim of a 5100-year-old murder. They were right: Later dubbed Otzi after the Otztal Valley nearby, the man's body is the oldest known "ice mummy" on record.... But Otzi's preservation may not be as unusual as it first seemed, archaeologists argue in a paper published today. And that could mean more bodies from the distant past are waiting to emerge as ice melts in a warming climate. Otzi "was such a huge surprise when he was found people thought he was a freak event," says Lars Pilo, an archaeologist working for the Oppland County Glacier Archaeological Program in Norway. But many of the original assumptions about how weather, climate, and glacial ice conspired to preserve him were wrong, Pilo; and other researchers write in the journal The Holocene. "This paper sheds new light on the interpretation of this exceptional archaeological find," says Matthias Huss, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich, who was not part of the team.... "The general understanding was that Otzi marked this beginning of a cooler period," Huss says, "as people were sure that [he] must have been within the ice without interruption since his death." But with the retreat of glaciers and ice patches around the world over the past few decades, other ancient remains have emerged, including bodies, hunting equipment, horse manure, and skis. "No one expected similar sites," says Thomas Reitmaier, an archaeologist at the Archaeological Service of the Canton of Grisons in Switzerland and a co-author of the new study. "Now, we have lots, and we find this one fits quite well with the picture of glacial archaeology we've developed." Thanks to Slashdot reader sciencehabit for sharing the story.

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