(cache) The First Aid: Iceman May Have Dressed His Own Wounds

The 5,000-year-old Tyrolean iceman may have used bog moss as a prehistoric wound dressing, according to a new analysis of his body's remains.

Suffering from an arrow wound and a deep cut to the right hand, the iceman, known as Ötzi, may have engaged in some ancient first aid using the moss, a well-known wound dressing used as recently as the 20th century.

"If he knew of the useful properties of bog mosses, as seems entirely plausible, then he may have gathered some to staunch the wound or wounds," wrote James Dickson, an archaeobotanist at the University of Glasgow, and his team in the journal Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. "Tiny pieces could well have stuck to the blood drying on his fingers and then he accidentally ingested some of them when next eating meat or bread as we know he did during his last few days."

His medical skills, however, couldn't prevent his death; archaeologists believe he was killed by an arrow.

The analysis of the fauna found near or inside human remains has added new dimensions to the study of the diets and habits of prehistoric people. The discipline has been particularly fruitful in the case of the iceman. Archaeologists had previously identified both intestinal parasites in Ötzi's colon and an anti-parasitic bark fungus that they believe he was using to treat himself.

Five samples of Ötzi's intestinal tract formed the basis of the new study. In total, six mosses were found in the bowels of the Iceman of the Alps, who has stirred widespread interest since his discovery in 1991. Some of the mosses, the scientists say, reveal aspects of the final days of this Copper Age man.

They believe that the iceman wrapped food in Neckera complanata, a fan moss, because it was found in all of the alimentary samples. That prevalence suggests that it was used systematically and wasn't just accidentally swallowed. The presence of a different moss found in wet areas indicates that Ötzi drank brackish water in the days leading up to his death.

While the new Ötzi work focused on the digestive track, a separate study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences used a different technique to pin down the diet of Peruvians who lived 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. The examination of starch grains scraped from dirty teeth recovered from an archaeological site revealed that agriculture was in full swing in the region during that time.

"We found starch from a variety of cultivated plants: squash, Phaseolus beans ... pacay, a fruit from a cultivated tree and peanuts," said one of the paper's authors, Dolores Piperno, an archaeobotanist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the National Museum of Natural History, in a press release.

The success of the study — it pushed back the cultivation of beans and pacay 1,000 years — and others like it (e.g., last year's ancient chili pepper story) show the power of starch-grain analysis, which has been around for decades, but with few practitioners. The method, popularized by Piperno, could shed even more light on the diets and habits of prehistoric peoples.

"Starch analysis of teeth should greatly improve our ability to address other important questions in human dietary change relating to earlier time periods, such as possible differences between Neanderthal and early modern human diets and their roles in Neanderthal extinction," said Piperno.

See Also:

Citations:

1. "Six mosses from the Tyrolean Iceman’s alimentary tract and their significance for his ethnobotany and the events of his last days" by James H. Dickson, Wolfgang Hofbauer, Ronald Porley, Alexandra Schmidl, Werner Kofler and Klaus Oeggl. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany: DOI 10.1007/s00334-007-0141-7

2. "Starch grains on human teeth reveal early broad crop diet in northern Peru" by Dolores R. Piperno and Tom D. Dillehay. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: DOI 10.1073/pnas.0808752105

Image 1: Tyrolean iceman. Credit: Franco Rollo/University of Camerino

Image 2. Hymenostylium recurvirostrum from the sample of food residue taken from the rectum. Credit: Vegetation History and Archaeobotany.

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