More than five thousand years after his death, Ötzi the Iceman still harbors a remarkable mix of ancient and modern microorganisms. A research team managed to distinguish which of these living beings were part of his body in life and which settled afterward, either in the glacier or during the decades of current preservation.
The analyses included ice from the surface of the mummy, meltwater from the interior, swabs, and material from intestinal and stomach tissues. A soil sample from the discovery site, kept frozen since 1991, was also studied. Genetic traces of Ötzi's original gut flora appeared in those remains.
This microbial community resembles the few known from early human populations. Many of these bacteria are rare in people from today's industrialized societies. That is why the mummy offers an uncommon window into the microorganisms that inhabited the human body millennia ago.
The most unexpected finding was cold-adapted yeast species. They appeared in skin samples, meltwater, and stomach contents. These yeasts are related to strains from extreme places like Antarctica, reinforcing the idea that they originated from the glacier and may have remained alongside Ötzi for thousands of years.
