These isotopic analyses added another dimension to the emerging picture: Ötzi was not a wandering outsider in the high Alps but a person from the region, someone who had grown up in the valleys nearby and who knew the mountain terrain through a lifetime of seasonal use.

The Genetics Of His Health Conditions

Beyond the ancestry findings, the 2023 genome analysis (and the 2012 analysis that preceded it, despite its contamination issues) revealed information about Ötzi’s genetic predispositions to health conditions — information that, compared against the physical evidence of his actual health, provides an interesting test of what genomic prediction can and cannot reliably do.

The genetic predisposition to atherosclerosis — hardening and plaque formation in the arteries — was identified in both the 2012 and 2023 analyses.

Imaging studies of Ötzi’s cardiovascular system confirmed the presence of atherosclerotic changes in his blood vessels.