Decades after the famous glacier mummy was discovered in the Italian Alps, scientists have dug back into his DNA to paint a better picture of the ancient hunter.
They determined that Oetzi was mostly descended from farmers from present day Turkey, and his head was balder and skin darker than what was initially thought, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Cell Genomics.
His corpse was preserved as a “natural mummy” until 1991, when hikers found him along with some of his clothing and gear — including a copper ax, a longbow and a bearskin hat.
But ancient DNA research has advanced since then, so scientists decided to take another look at the iceman’s genes, explained study author Johannes Krause, a geneticist at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
The updated genome is “providing deeper insights into the history of this mummy,” said Andreas Keller of Germany’s Saarland University.
Most Europeans today have a mix of genes from three groups: farmers from Anatolia, hunter-gatherers from the west and herders from the east.