Cold Case Files: Ötzi's last hours

CFeagans at Anthropology.net reports on a study of "Ötzi" the Iceman which amounts to the ex post facto analysis of a five-thousand-year-old crime:

New research, soon to be published in the Journal of Archaeological Sciences and Quaternary Sciences Review are confirming the so-called "disaster theory" of the last days of Ötzi, the Iceman. Ötzi was found in 1991 by two German tourists hiking in Austria, his remains naturally frozen and mummified by a glacier and dating to ca. 3300 BCE. The two different research teams, one in Bolzano, Italy and the other in Innsbruck, Austria have confirmed a few things relating to Ötzi's death:

1. that it was a projectile point that lacerated the left subclavian artery, and that the attempted removal of the arrow at the time of death may have caused Ötzi to bleed to death. The projectile has long been known about, but, until now, the actual cause of death has been speculative.
2. Ötzi's movements in the last day or two of his life are confirmed by analysis of ingesta and pollen samples. He, apparently ate two different meals since he had two different kinds of meat in his digestive system that were at different stages of digestion and pollen samples could be forensically traced to specific regions near the site of his death.

Specifically, Ötzi was in a subalpine region some distance above the Schnals and/or Etsch valleys where he walked to and was present about 9-12 hours before his death. Seven to four hours later, Ötzi was again in a subalpine coniferous forest where he consumed his last meal and then he climbed to the Tisen Pass where he died. Basically, he was in the highlands, went down to the valley, and then back up to the highlands again in a matter of hours. His last hours were both hectic and violent.

Where he was, what he ate, and the shot in the back of the shoulder with an arrow are all things that can be forensically revealed. Why he was where he was and why he was shot, to those questions we can only speculate. But sometimes, as long as we don't attempt to establish them as truths, speculations can be the fun parts of archaeology.