And when those German tourists found him in September of 1991, he was — despite some damage from the initial well-intentioned but harmful recovery attempts — the best-preserved natural human mummy ever discovered.

Not just one of the best.

The best.

Within days of the initial recovery, experts were beginning to understand what they were dealing with.

The copper axe found nearby — with a blade of almost pure copper — was not a modern artifact.

The bow and arrows, the grass cloak, the leather clothing, the birch-bark containers: none of these were modern.

This was not a recent mountaineer.

The announcement that he had lived more than five thousand years ago was front-page news around the world.

Ötzi has been front-page news, in various ways, ever since.

The Discovery That Changed Everything

Before we can understand what the DNA revealed, we have to understand who Ötzi was established to be through the thirty-odd years of scientific investigation that preceded the most recent and most complete genomic analysis.

And before we can understand any of that, we have to understand how remarkable his preservation was — because without that preservation, there would be nothing to analyze.

Most organic material from five thousand years ago is simply gone.

Tissue decomposes.