Mystery Solved, a New Mystery Born

Scientists love a good mystery, and the discovery of a mummified Bronze Age hunter in the Italian Alps 10 years ago gave them one. How the Iceman died, perhaps as long as 5,300 years ago, became a subject of intense speculation. Some thought he might have been injured in a fall while on a lonely excursion. Others wondered whether he might not have dropped off to sleep and frozen to death at the 11,000-foot altitude. Now, thanks to computerized axial tomography imagery, the answer has been revealed. The Iceman died at the hands of another, shot with a flint-tipped arrow that led to his death probably within a few hours.

One mystery solved, only to give rise to another: Who shot the Iceman? Maybe the deadly wound was an accident, with the unfortunate Iceman mistaken by a fellow hunter for that night’s dinner. Or perhaps it was murder most foul, prompted by greed, envy, sexual jealousy or any of the other emotions that have always motivated homicide. The Iceman was between 45 and 50 years old, a very advanced age for that era. Might he have been a tribal leader whose ambitious likely successor--perhaps even a son--grew tired of waiting for nature to take its course and acted to hasten his chance at upward mobility?

The circumstances leading to his death may be unknowable. No matter. The Iceman is a unique link to the human past. His corpse and the artifacts found with it, remarkably preserved in Alpine ice, have already revealed much. And, say the scientists who are studying him, he has many more tales yet to tell.