Dating methods
There are always issues when dating glacier corpses. Konrad Spindler, an Austrian archaeologist who examined Otzi estimated that the body was 4000 years old; he came to this conclusion based off the observation on the axe found with the corpse. He assumed the axe was from the early bronze age because of its design, however after chemical analysis’ were conducted and it was determined that the axe contained copper indicating Otzi belonged to the Copper age.
After this Otzi’s body was taken in for radiocarbon dating to find out a more reliable date of when Otzi was from, after taken minute samples from the bone and tissue of the Iceman’s hip. Other radiocarbon dating tests were also carried out independently this time testing the grass samples found with the body. The average of all the tests showed that Otzi lived approximately 5300 years ago. |