Ötzi's frozen remains may harbour metabolically active microbes

• 01Ötzi's mummified body was discovered in 1991 thawing out of an Alpine glacier close to the Austria-Italy border.
• 02Ötzi is estimated to have lived between 3350 and 3120 BC.
• 03Studies of Ötzi's remains revealed he was probably dark-skinned and balding, had numerous tattoos, and had a wound in his shoulder from an arrow.
• 04Ötzi is kept at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy, at a temperature of -6°C and relative humidity of 99 percent.
• 05Frank Maixner and colleagues analyzed bacteria and fungi from skin swabs, tissue fragments, and internal thawed water samples taken in 1992, 2010, and 2019.
• 06The team found specialist bacteria including species of Treponema and Kineothrix that thrive without oxygen inside the mammalian gut, based on DNA damage analysis likely present when Ötzi was alive.
• 07The abundance of Glaciozyma yeast increased between 2010 and 2019, becoming the dominant strain, with reduced DNA damage suggesting potential metabolic activity under conservation conditions.
• 08Researchers in the 1990s treated the mummy with a phenol-containing substance to kill off fungi, and some microbes found contain genes for degrading phenol.

These words or phrases carry political, emotional, or ideological loading in the original article. Use Link Launderer to see them highlighted in context.

Scientists analyzing microbes from Ötzi the Iceman, a 5,300-year-old mummy discovered in 1991, found both ancient bacteria from his gut and modern microorganisms, some of which may still be metabolically active despite storage at -6°C. The study identified ancient bacteria that lived inside Ötzi when alive and cold-loving yeasts colonized post-mortem, with one yeast species showing increased abundance and reduced DNA damage between 2010 and 2019. Researchers note that Ötzi's remains represent a complex ecosystem shaped by microbial succession after death, glacial infiltration over millennia, and three decades of conservation rather than a frozen biological time capsule.