This personalization of the past is one of the things that has made Ötzi such an enduring cultural phenomenon.

The forensic investigation of his murder is compelling not because ancient murder mysteries are academically important, but because human beings are drawn to the specific and the personal.

Knowing that someone shot Ötzi in the back while he was resting after a meal — knowing that detail, that specific fact about a specific moment five thousand years ago — makes the past real in a way that generalizations about Copper Age violence cannot.

The medical record of his life does the same thing.