The world's oldest blood: it's Oetzi the Iceman's

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Oetzi the Iceman's blood is world's oldest (BBC News)
Researchers studying Oetzi, a 5,300-year-old body found frozen in the Italian Alps in 1991, have found red blood cells around his wounds.

Blood cells tend to degrade quickly, and earlier scans for blood within Oetzi's body turned up nothing.

Now a study in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface shows that Oetzi's remarkable preservation extends even to the blood he shed shortly before dying.

The find represents by far the oldest red blood cells ever observed.

It is just the latest chapter in what could be described as the world's oldest murder mystery.

Since Oetzi was first found by hikers with an arrow buried in his back, experts have determined that he died from his wounds and what his last meal was.

There has been extensive debate as to whether he fell where he died or was buried there by others.
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much more at BBC link above
 
Oooh, this is fascinating! I wonder if they'll be able to tell what kind of diseases he was carrying or had suffered from...? Though I don't like to seem morbid, but I often assess a region's social history via its epidemiology. This is exciting for me, lol.

The linked article has a number of related articles linked just below it-- it's all interesting reading, and much of it I had missed. Thanks, Woofie! :)
 
They determined that Oetzi was mostly descended from farmers from present day Turkey, and his head was balder and skin darker than what was initially thought, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Cell Genomics.

Oetzi, who lived more than 5,000 years ago, was frozen into the ice after he was killed by an arrow to the back. His corpse was preserved as a “natural mummy” until 1991, when hikers found him along with some of his clothing and gear — including a copper ax, a longbow and a bearskin hat. Since then, many researchers have worked to uncover more about the mummy, which is displayed at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy.
This photo provided by The South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology shows Oetzi the Iceman, one of the oldest human glacier mummies. Decades after he was discovered in the Italian Alps, scientists determined that Oetzi was mostly descended from farmers from present day Turkey, and his head was balder and skin darker than what was initially thought, according to a study published Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023, in the journal Cell Genomics. (Marco Samadelli, Gregor Staschitz/South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology/EURAC via AP)

An earlier draft of Oetzi’s genome was published in 2012. But ancient DNA research has advanced since then, so scientists decided to take another look at the iceman’s genes, explained study author Johannes Krause, a geneticist at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. They used DNA extracted from the mummy’s hip bone.

The updated genome is “providing deeper insights into the history of this mummy,” said Andreas Keller of Germany’s Saarland University. Keller worked on the earlier version but was not involved with the latest study.

Based on the new genome, Oetzi’s appearance when he died around age 45 was much like the mummy looks today: It’s dark and doesn’t have much hair on it, said study author Albert Zink, head of the Institute for Mummy Studies at Eurac Research in Italy. Scientists previously thought the iceman was lighter-skinned and hairier in life, but that his mummified corpse had changed over time.

His genome also showed an increased chance of obesity and diabetes, the researchers reported.
 

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