LONDON : Otzi the Iceman, the 5,300-year-old well-preserved mummy found in the Austrian Alps, sported a varied animal-skin wardrobe and now researchers have identified the species that were used to make his ensemble.
New genetic evidence suggests the iceman mummy, whose remarkably preserved body was found frozen in the Tyrolean Alps in Austria, once sported an outfit made almost completely of animal skin.
Scientists have also found which animals were used to make this Stone Age getup.
“We have discovered that the iceman’s clothes were composed of an array of different animals,” said Niall O’Sullivan, a doctoral candidate at the University College Dublin in Ireland.
O’Sullivan, also a researcher at the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman, EURAC research in Italy, and his colleagues attempted to gather genetic data from Otzi’s outfit.
By using more modern, next-generation sequencing techniques that amplify certain target strands of DNA, the team was able to identify the species associated with each piece of clothing, ‘Live Science’ reported.
Otzi’s leather overcoat was made of a grab bag of at least four different individual animals from two species – sheep and goat – while his lighter coat was made of sheep.
His leggings were made of goatskin, perhaps because that type of animal skin provided the suppleness needed for walking, the researchers said.
To top off the wardrobe, his leather shoes were stuffed with grass, and he sported shoelaces derived from wild cow, or auroch, they said. (AGENCIES)
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