Ötzi the iceman has fascinated scientists since his frozen 5,300-year-old corpse was discovered by Alpine hikers in 1991.
Now, three and a half years after discovering that Ötzi was murdered, experts have now found discovered was suffering from a nasty stomach bug.
It is this bug which has shed fascinating new light on the migration patterns of prehistoric man, showing that Europe’s first farmers are most likely to have come from the Middle East
The findings have been presented to the journal Science by a research team from the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman, at the European Research Academy in Bolzano, Italy.
Painstaking work has enabled the scientists to use the ulcer bacterium in Ötzi’s stomach to determine the origins of Europe’s first farmers.
Scientists recovered samples of Helicobacter pylori from his frozen stomach tissue. It is a bacterium which infects about half the human population and is also linked to stomach ulcers.
A hybrid version of the bacterium is still to be found in modern day Europeans. It is a hybrid of strains originating in Eurasia and Africa.
The strain discovered in Ötzi’s stomach remains is purely Eurasian which, according to experts, is hugely significant.
It had been believed that Africans moved into Europe more than 20,000 years ago as the glaciers began to retreat.
Had this been the case there should have been evidence of the African strain in Ötzi’s stomach tissue.
But the presence of only the Eurasian strain has led scientists to believe that the Africans arrived after Ötzi came to a bloody end – having been shot with an arrow and then bludgeoned to death.
Instead Ötzi’s DNA resembles that of farmers who came from the Middle East, possibly having originated in Asia – with the strain of bacterium most closely resembling that now found in and around India.
Source : The Telegraph
Watch the full story --
Now, three and a half years after discovering that Ötzi was murdered, experts have now found discovered was suffering from a nasty stomach bug.
It is this bug which has shed fascinating new light on the migration patterns of prehistoric man, showing that Europe’s first farmers are most likely to have come from the Middle East
The findings have been presented to the journal Science by a research team from the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman, at the European Research Academy in Bolzano, Italy.
Painstaking work has enabled the scientists to use the ulcer bacterium in Ötzi’s stomach to determine the origins of Europe’s first farmers.
Scientists recovered samples of Helicobacter pylori from his frozen stomach tissue. It is a bacterium which infects about half the human population and is also linked to stomach ulcers.
A hybrid version of the bacterium is still to be found in modern day Europeans. It is a hybrid of strains originating in Eurasia and Africa.
The strain discovered in Ötzi’s stomach remains is purely Eurasian which, according to experts, is hugely significant.
It had been believed that Africans moved into Europe more than 20,000 years ago as the glaciers began to retreat.
Had this been the case there should have been evidence of the African strain in Ötzi’s stomach tissue.
But the presence of only the Eurasian strain has led scientists to believe that the Africans arrived after Ötzi came to a bloody end – having been shot with an arrow and then bludgeoned to death.
Instead Ötzi’s DNA resembles that of farmers who came from the Middle East, possibly having originated in Asia – with the strain of bacterium most closely resembling that now found in and around India.
Source : The Telegraph
Watch the full story --
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