They were vivid, immediate, and they directly contradicted the image of the Iceman that had been built into popular consciousness through three decades of reconstructions, documentaries, museum displays, and science journalism.

For thirty years, Ötzi had been depicted with relatively light skin — the kind of complexion that the popular imagination associates with European populations.

Reconstructions in wax and other materials, created for museum displays and used in countless documentaries, showed a man who looked broadly like a modern light-skinned European, perhaps slightly weathered by outdoor life but fundamentally familiar in appearance.

The 2023 genome analysis showed that this depiction was wrong.