Like Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi, he was apparently traveling through alpine terrain when he died.

But Ötzi’s case differs from Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi’s in ways that are directly relevant to the ethical and scientific frameworks of the two investigations. Ötzi lived approximately 5,300 years ago — in the European Copper Age.

No contemporary ethnic or Indigenous community has a direct governance claim over his remains or the research conducted on them.

The research on Ötzi has been conducted primarily within Italian and Austrian institutional frameworks, without the kind of community governance structure that shaped the Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi project.

Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi, by contrast, lived only several centuries ago — recent enough that the Indigenous communities of the region have continuous oral and cultural traditions that connect them to his time period, recent enough that living people carry DNA that matches his, and recent enough that the specific governance rights of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations over their traditional territory encompass the period when he lived.