Individual findings might be questioned; the convergence of independent lines of evidence is much harder to dismiss.

The Alpine Context Then And Now

The Alps that Ötzi moved through are in some ways recognizable from the modern Alps and in other ways profoundly different.

The physical landscape — the mountains, the valleys, the passes, the rivers — is essentially the same.

Mountains don’t change much on a five-thousand-year timescale, though the glaciers have retreated substantially from their Copper Age extent.

The high alpine terrain that Ötzi navigated in the fourth millennium BCE is navigable by modern hikers following very similar routes through the same mountain terrain.