The 2023 genome analysis cleaned that window a little — removed some of the distortion introduced by the contamination of the 2012 analysis, sharpened the image of who he actually was.

The image is clearer now.

A dark-skinned, dark-eyed, balding man of middle age, with a copper axe and a full toolkit and a recent fight on his hands, eating his last meal in a cold alpine hollow.

He waited five thousand years in the ice.

He waited another decade while the science developed the tools to read what he was hiding.

And what he was hiding was the truth of who he was — a truth that turned out to be more surprising, and more human, than anyone had expected.