The ice-man's skin suggests that acupuncture is not a Chinese invention at all
by Tamara Traubman
The oldest mummy in Europe, which lived 5,000 years ago and was found only nine years ago, was thawed this week. The thawing lasted four hours and was done, in fact, to allow scientists to remove samples from the body of the man, who was nicknamed Iceman. The scientists raised the temperatures in the ice-man's preservation chamber to two degrees Celsius, and took samples of bones, teeth, skin and fatty tissue.
In the coming months, scientists from a number of universities in the world intend to solve ancient and intriguing riddles by examining the samples, such as who are the descendants of the mummy and what caused its death. There are already today several possible answers to this question: one hypothesis is that he was simply exhausted from walking in the Alps, fell asleep and froze to death; According to another hypothesis, based on damaged tissue extracted from his brain, he died as a result of a stroke; And some broken ribs found with him may actually imply that he died as a result of an accident.
Next year, the anthropologist Dr. Horst Scheidler from the University of Vienna and his colleagues from Wake Forest University in North Carolina will examine when the ribs were actually damaged - near the death of the Ice-Man or rather in his youth.
In another major project, the researchers will try to shed light on the roots of the Ice-Man. In 1994, research on mitochondrial DNA - the DNA that is inherited only from the mother - revealed that the greatest degree of proximity of the Ice-man's mitochondrial DNA to contemporary populations is in people living in Northern and Central Europe. Two research teams from Italy hope to extract better quality DNA samples from the bone samples taken, and sketch an accurate description of his lineage in hopes of learning more about migration patterns in early Europe.
The Ice-Man was discovered nine years ago, as mentioned, completely by accident. Two mountain climbers who were hiking in the Austrian-Italian border area noticed a body sticking out of the snow. Shortly after the discovery, a serious quarrel broke out between Austria and Italy, both of which claimed protection over it. After precise measurements proved that the mummy was discovered 93 meters south of the border, i.e. on the Italian side, it was placed in a refrigerated cell at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology.
The study of the remarkably well-preserved mummy has already provided valuable information about life in the prehistoric age. In the Ice-Man's possession was found a copper ax - a prestigious item indicating a high social status, and he may even have been a tribal chief - as well as a waterproof cape. It is known that in the 19th century shepherds in the Alps still used similar capes.
In addition, during the research, it became clear that the Ice-Man's intestines harbored whipworm eggs, parasites that must have caused him a lot of pain. Intriguing tattoos were discovered on his back and legs, and researchers who examined him said that the tattoo marks appeared to have no decorative value. They hypothesized that they were actually acupuncture marks, and sent photographs of the puncture marks to acupuncturists who determined that some of the marks were indeed acupuncture points associated with bladder and arthritis.
At the moment, no one knows if the Iceman - who seems to have reached the age of 40, a respectable achievement in the late Stone Age in which he lived - suffered from bladder problems, but computed tomography (CT) scans have already revealed that he did suffer from arthritis. The Iceman lived about XNUMX years before acupuncture appeared in China, so the researchers said that the geographic origin of this form of pluralization may have been Eurasian in general and not East Asian, reflecting intercultural relations in prehistoric times.
{Appeared in Haaretz newspaper, 3/10/2000}
