In 1991 a couple hiking in the Italian Alps made a startling and gruesome discovery: They found the frozen body of a man protruding from a glacier. The dead man's clothing and shoes suggested that he was very unusual, and his discoverers wondered who he might be.
Figure 1. Gruesome discovery in the Italian Alps of a 5,000-year-old man in 1991 raised the question of his identity, a mystery of the type that DNA forensics routinely solves for more modern specimens. But using the molecular biological techniques of gene amplification and DNA sequencing, scientists can now learn about even the most ancient specimens. Such studies, for example, have determined that the so-called Tyrolean Iceman was of northern European origin. Research on artifacts found with the Iceman, such as the grass cloak simulated in the reconstrunction (left) displayed in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy, reveals aspects of the culture in which the Iceman lived. For example, the grass making up his cloak and lining his shoes (left), is a cereal, closely related to modern varieties, which has been under cultivation for thousands of years. This grain likely served as the principal source of carbohydrates for the Iceman and the Neolithic peoples with whom he lived.
AP Photo / str / Wide World Photos; Photographs of the reconstruction and the shoes courtesy of The South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology.
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