BOOK REVIEW / SCIENCE : Discovery of Iceman Brings Alive Fragments of the Past : THE MAN IN THE ICE, <i> by Konrad Spindler</i> , Harmony Books, $25, 320 pages

Eventually, what is lost may be recovered, like the fossilized mitten in my car, or the mummified cat exhumed in the excavation down the street. That goes for people, too, as Konrad Spindler explains in “The Man in the Ice,” his account of recovering the body of a Stone Age man from a melting Alpine glacier in September, 1991--5,000 years after the man failed in his attempt to traverse a mountain.

Of course, those who might have missed this “Iceman” have long since vanished, along with their memories of him and his world. But his preserved body, clothes and possessions are providing tantalizing information about neolithic civilization.

Spindler, an Austrian archeologist who was called to the site in the Ortzal Alps (on the Italian-Austrian border) within a day of the discovery, has written this account in an effort to place the Iceman in the perspective of European prehistory.

Spindler describes all kinds of mummified corpses--those preserved on purpose by the Egyptians, by accident in the peat bogs of Britain and Denmark, or in permafrost, as with the Iceman. Preserved bodies are rare and fascinating finds for archeologists, for the evidence of organic life that they retain enables historical forensic sleuths to reconstruct the diet and everyday lives of bygone peoples.

Spindler also writes to set the record straight about who found what and where, as he chronicles the physical and logistic difficulties of salvaging the body from the ice. Removing the body was followed by political conflicts about whether or not a corpse qualified as an “ancient monument,” and if so, of which nation (since its location was arguably in both Italy and Austria).

While there have been some reports to the contrary, Spindler denies that scientists had any dramatic confrontations over possession of the body. He also debunks the claim that the body was destroyed by its discoverers; generally, it arrived in Innsbruck, Austria, in excellent shape, he explains, with the tattoos on its back easily readable.

Another argument he debunks is the claim that the body’s appearance provides evidence of global warming. The Alpine climate, he points out, is much as it has always been, and only a fluke resulting from a windstorm from the Sahara Desert in early March, 1991, accounts for the find.

So much for the discovery’s impact. Most of these pages describe the Alpine community in the Stone Age. In detail that is both numbing and fascinating, Spindler lists and illustrates exactly what the Iceman wore, what equipment he carried with him, and what remains of his corpse.

Patience is rewarded when Spindler brings all these details together as clues to a possible crime. Coupled with traditional archeological information, including evidence from a recently excavated communal grave in a neolithic village near the site of the Iceman’s body, he weaves a tale of mayhem and an early story of “ethnic cleansing.”

Suggesting that a massacre in the village may explain the Iceman’s plight, Spindler explores what that has to do with the Iceman’s copper ax, fur tunic, woven grass cloak and hay-lined shoes. What did it mean, he wonders, that his garments were crudely repaired but his bow and arrow skillfully carved? What is the significance of the charcoal he carried in a willow container and the pollen and grain that adhered to his clothing?

What kind of life did the Iceman live? Was he a nomad, trader, villager, farmer or shepherd? In answering these questions, Spindler displays the reasoning that distinguishes scientists from curio collectors, and shows the importance of familiarity with the territory.

The Alpine pass where the Iceman died has scarcely changed in the 5,000 years since he failed to reach wherever he was going. If he was running for his life, he was like myriad others who have challenged the Alps with varying degrees of success since the forests that once covered the lower slopes were replaced by urban comforts such as roads and power lines. But the glacier that trapped him is still there, and his recovery from it remains something of a miracle.