The Tyrolean Iceman, a 5,300-year-old glacier mummy recovered at the Tisenjoch (South Tyrol, Italy) together with his clothes and personal equipment, represents a unique opportunity for prehistoric research. The present work examines the Iceman’s tools which are made from chert or are related to chert working - dagger, two arrowheads, endscraper, borer, small flake and antler retoucher - and considers also the arrowhead still embedded in the shoulder of the mummy. The interdisciplinary results achieved by study of the lithic raw material, technology, use-wear analysis, CT analysis and typology all add new information to Ötzi‘s individual history and his last days, and allow insights into the way of life of Alpine Copper Age communities. The chert raw material of the small assemblage originates from at least three different areas of provenance in the Southalpine region. One, or possibly two, sources derive from outcrops in the Trentino, specifically the Non Valley. Such variability suggests an extensive provisioning network, not at all limited to the Lessini mountains, which was able to reach the local communities. The Iceman’s toolkit displays typological characteristics of the Northern Italian tradition, but also comprises features typical of the Swiss Horgen culture, which will come as no surprise in the toolkit of a man who lived in a territory where transalpine contacts would have been of great importance. Ötzi was not a flintknapper, but he was able to resharpen his tools with a medium to good level of skill. Wear traces reveal that he was a right-hander. Most instruments in the toolkit had reached their final stage of usability, displaying extensive usage, mostly from plant working, resharpenings and breaks. Evidently Ötzi had not had any access to chert for quite some time, which must have been problematic during his last hectic days, preventing him from repairing and integrating his weapons, in particular his arrows. Freshly modified blade tools without any wear suggest planned work which he never carried out, possibly prevented by the events which made him return to the mountains where he was killed by a Southern Alpine archer.

Funding: This work was supported by the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology which financed travel costs for UW, SA, SB and JP, research material, services and insurance, and by the Department of Innovation, Research and University of the Autonomous Province of Bozen/Bolzano which covered the article processing charge. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Copyright: © 2018 Wierer et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Thanks to the similarity of the copper axe, the dagger and the arrowheads with the grave goods of the Northern Italian Remedello Culture, the southern Alpine origin of the Iceman was hypothesized soon after the discovery [ 17 – 18 ]. His provenance from the Lower Vinschgau, the main valley at 1–2 days’ walk south from the discovery site, was then also indicated by the plant species of his equipment [ 16 ], and later confirmed by isotope analyses made on the mummy [ 19 ]. The Copper Age population of the Vinschgau is best attested by the site of Latsch, contemporary with the Iceman, settled by an agro-pastoral community [ 20 ]. Besides an economy centered on the valley floor, an increased interest in the mountain range, perceptible over the entire region during the Late Neolithic and Copper Age [ 21 ], can also be seen in the Vinschgau, where recent findings on passes at about 3,000 m a.s.l. also prove that the Alpine Ridge had been crossed during the 4 th and 3 rd millennium BC [ 22 – 23 ]. Unlike with other Alpine territories though, where mountain frequentation could be due to mountain pastoralism [ 24 – 25 ], no evidence for such activity has been found in the Schnals Valley before the 2 nd millennium BC [ 26 – 28 ]. The burial sites of the communities living in the Vinschgau have not been found. According to Dal Ri & Tecchiati [ 29 ] though, ancient findings of isolated lithic daggers could derive from destroyed burial sites, being daggers typical of grave goods of the period. The regional death rituals are characterized both by burials in rock-shelters and small caves, in cultural continuity with the Western Alpine Civate Culture, and by the deposition of the sometimes cremated bodies in large stone structures [ 30 – 31 ]. Significant testimonies to the ideological and religious world are the anthropomorphic stele [ 32 – 33 ], verified locally at Algund, Latsch and Vezzan [ 34 – 36 ], possibly representing heroic ancestors. As shown by the excavations conducted in Valcamonica and Valtellina in neighboring Lombardy [ 37 ], these monuments were erected in megalithic sanctuaries, important meeting places of the alpine Copper Age inhabitants. The existence of long-distance contacts maintained by the local communities, even as far as Central Italy, have been highlighted by the Iceman’s axe made from Tuscan copper [ 38 ]. Analogous results obtained for the copper axe from Zug-Riedmatt in Switzerland [ 39 ] suggest extended networks and intensive transalpine cultural contacts.

The present research deals with the Iceman’s tools which are made from chert or are related to chert working: the dagger blade, the two arrowheads, the three unhafted chert tools and the retoucher. The study also considers the arrowhead still embedded in the Iceman’s left shoulder which most probably caused his decease [ 11 ]. The aim of the study is to investigate the story of the owner, Ötzi, in order to gain insights into his individual history, last days and cultural and social background. All artefacts were found in the glacier gully near the Iceman. The belt pouch containing endscraper, borer and small flake was detected during the recovery of the corpse from the glacier on 23 rd September 1991. Its precise position is unknown but, judging from its good preservation, it very probably lay under the mummy [ 9 , 12 ]. The belt poach contained also a bone awl and several pieces of fomes fomentarius fungus with traces of pyrite [ 9 , 13 , 14 ]. After the removal of the body, the retoucher and dagger came to light in the melt water. They lay in the immediate surroundings of the body [ 12 ]. However, the details as to where and how the bast scabbard recovered on the same day, was found are obscure. A few days after the official rescue a leather quiver was detected about 5 m north-east from the “mummy stone”, but several elements indicate that this was not its original position [ 12 , 15 ]. The quiver contained two arrowheads separate from their broken shafts, 12 unfinished arrow shafts, a bundle of four antler points wrapped with bast, a single antler point, a bast cord and a bundle of sinews [ 9 ]. A shaft fragment, broken into three pieces, was found further away, near the copper axe, the back bag and the bow. It has been identified as the proximal fragment of the unfinished shaft 13 [ 15 – 16 ].

It was on 19 th September 1991 when tourists crossing a glacier on the main Alpine ridge between the Schnalstal (Italy) and the Ötztal (Austria) made an exceptional discovery: on the Tisenjoch, at 3210 m a.s.l., the naturally mummified body of a fully equipped man emerged from the ice. This unique witness of the Copper Age, who died between 3370–3100 cal BC (4550±19 BP uncal,1σ) after having been shot by an arrow and was subsequently preserved in the ice, has opened new perspectives for prehistoric and anthropological research into the reconstruction of lifestyle and physical conditions of the Alpine inhabitants of the latter part of the 4 th millennium BC [ 1 – 10 ]. For archaeological research the discovery and the context of this 45 years old man, along with his clothing and personal equipment, mostly made from exceptionally well-preserved organic material, represent a unique case study.

The study focused on the comparison of the dagger, the three arrowheads and the endscraper with more or less contemporary artefacts of the Alpine and perialpine Copper Age contexts represented in the literature. The publications consulted were restricted to the Northern Italian Alpine regions, as well as Swiss, Austrian, and southern German territories. Only the artefacts depicted were taken into consideration. The aim was to gain information about the cultural background of the Iceman. The 14 C datings reported in the text have been recalibrated with Oxcal ORAU using the IntCal 13 curve within 2σ confidence range.

A new CT scan was conducted on the hafted tools of the Iceman in order to depict the three-dimensional shape and the structure of the tool portions hidden by the handles and shafts. In addition, the retoucher spike was measured for its radiological density (measured in Hounsfield Units–HU) in order to get information about the material used [ 60 ]. Analyses were carried out by a Somatom Definition Flash CT scanner (Siemens, Forchheim, Germany) installed at the Department of Radiology of the Hospital of Bozen-Bolzano. The acquisition parameters were 120 kV, 200 mAs in high resolution technique with slice collimation of 10 x 0.3 mm; images were reconstructed in the axial plane in a soft tissue (U30u) and a bone tissue algorithm (U90u) with a slice thickness of 0.4 mm (overlapping of 0.2 mm). A second acquisition was performed using the Dual Energy (DE) technique with the following exposure parameters: 80/140 kV and 250/97 mAs with a slice collimation of 32 x 0.6 mm followed by image reconstruction of 0.6 mm (overlapping 0.4 mm) in a soft tissue Kernel (B30s). Post-processing of the images included multiplanar reformations in the coronal and sagittal plane and volume rendering techniques (VRT).

The traceological analysis was carried out by means of both the low power approach (LPA) [ 53 – 55 ] and the high power approach (HPA) [ 56 – 58 ]. LPA focuses on the analysis of macro-traces produced by the contact of the lithic tool with the worked material or with a possible handle, in order to interpret the actions carried out and to obtain general information about the hardness of the worked material. HPA is based on the observation of micro-traces allowing a more in-depth interpretation of the worked material. Use-wear was observed at low magnification (20x - 80x) by means of a Hirox KH 7700 3D digital microscope, using a MX-G 5040Z body equipped with an AD-5040Lows and an AD-5040HS lens, and a Leica Stereomicroscope M205 A. Micro-trace analysis was performed by using the fore-mentioned Hirox microscope fitted out with a MXG-10C body and an OL-140II lens (140x- 480x). Both microscopes enable one to obtain fully focused pictures through the overlapping of planes taken at different focus levels [ 59 ]. The traces on the archaeological lithic tools were interpreted by means of comparison with traces produced during a dedicated experimental program using replicas of Ötzi’s tools. Furthermore, the experimental reference collection of the research unit “Prehistory and Anthropology” of Siena University was also used. It must be pointed out that analyses were not focused on the study of residues. Therefore, among the residues observed during examination, only the identified ones are reported here.

The technological approach faced the following research questions: Which blanks were used to produce the tools and with which techniques? What is the technical state of the artefacts? What is the knapper’s level of skill? And, finally, is the lithic assemblage homogeneous or not? Pieces were analyzed macroscopically, with optical lenses and by means of macro photos in order to decipher and interpret the scars and their chronology with the aim of recovering the successive intentions of the knapper. Method and terminology are described in the specific literature [ 47 – 52 ]. New drawings of the artefacts were made based on the technological analysis.

The purpose of the study was to describe the chert lithotypes that represent the toolkit with the aim of identifying the geological formations exploited and to delimit possible geographic sources of provenance. The cherts were analyzed under a binocular microscope (Leica Stereomicroscope M205 A) up to 150x equipped with dedicated software for picture management. The chert microfacies were studied in order to recognize the texture and mineralogy, the sedimentary features and structures, the micropalaeontological content and the depositional environment. The colors were classified using Munsell Soil Color Charts. The artefacts were then compared with environmental lithic resources. These have been prospected for and sampled over the years, both in the Southalpine and in the Austroalpine regions from outcrops and secondary deposits, resulting in a large “lithotheque” used for the comparative work, which is almost up-to-date and situated at Ferrara University [ 42 – 46 ]. The approach is to increase knowledge of the regional geology and thus to have a progressively better definition and evaluation of potential local resources. The work is performed by constantly drawing on the earth sciences (geology) and its methods for sampling, mapping and field trip descriptions.

The main methodological approach is based on the reconstruction of the technical actions and gestures and their chronological sequence along the entire life cycle of each tool, from raw-material procurement to its final abandonment, its chaîne opératoire [ 40 – 41 ]. Analyses took place directly at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bozen-Bolzano where the artefacts are preserved. CT was made at Bozen-Bolzano Hospital. All analyses were non-destructive and made without sampling. All necessary permits were obtained for the described study, which complied with all relevant regulations. The permit was given by the Director of the Azienda Musei Provinciali and the Director of the Museum, after the positive response of the Scientific Council of the Museum.

3. Technology and use-wear