The Alps themselves appear to have functioned as a genetic barrier — not an absolute barrier to movement (Ötzi himself and his people clearly crossed and navigated the Alps regularly), but a barrier sufficient to limit the gene flow that had introduced hunter-gatherer ancestry into most other European populations.

The communities of the Alpine valleys, surrounded by high mountain terrain, may have been relatively insular in their mating patterns — intermarrying within their own communities more than with the wider populations to the north, east, and west.

Over generations, this would have maintained a higher proportion of Anatolian farmer ancestry and a lower proportion of hunter-gatherer ancestry than populations in more accessible, more connected regions.

The nearest genetic analog to Ötzi among modern populations, both the 2012 and 2023 analyses agreed, was the modern Sardinian population.