Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works. Hey, brain stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum Here. You may have heard of folks emulating
Speaker 1: the diets of our ancient pre agricultural human ancestors for
Speaker 1: health and welfare, you know, paleo. But thanks to recent research,
Speaker 1: we now have an actual ancient menu of sorts to
Speaker 1: follow the last meal of Otsi a k a. The Iceman,
Speaker 1: a five thousand, three hundred year old man whose frozen
Speaker 1: body was found by German tourists in the Italian Alps
Speaker 1: back in. An international group of researchers has conducted the
Speaker 1: first in depth study of the contents of Otsi's stomach
Speaker 1: and small and large intestines, as detailed in an article
Speaker 1: published in a July issue of the journal Current Biology.
Speaker 1: They used a combination of multi omics studies involving different
Speaker 1: biomolecules such as ancient DNA proteins, metabolites, and lipids, plus
Speaker 1: microscopic examination to reconstruct the exact composition of Otsi's food intake.
Speaker 1: Just before his apparent violent death from massive bleeding caused
Speaker 1: by an arrow wound in his shoulder, Otzy's stomach still
Speaker 1: contained a small amount of food that he was in
Speaker 1: the process of digesting, including animal muscle, fibers and plant fragments,
Speaker 1: as well as metabolic compounds that indicated the presence of
Speaker 1: dairy products and whole grain cereals. In addition to the
Speaker 1: chemical analysis, the researchers also analyzed DNA they found in
Speaker 1: the food and studied bacteria in Otsey's gas or intestinal tract.
Speaker 1: From that, they determined that Otsey's last meal probably consisted
Speaker 1: of ibex and red deer meat that he ate, either
Speaker 1: fresh or dried, and fat from grazing animals or dairy
Speaker 1: products supplemented with ein corn, a wild species of wheat.
Speaker 1: Otsy's diet was high in fat, with its residues making
Speaker 1: up between twenty seven and forty six of his stomach's contents.
Speaker 1: The researchers think that that wasn't by accident. In the cold,
Speaker 1: high altitude environment in which Otsy lived, it was a
Speaker 1: challenge to avoid starvation and energy loss. The researchers wrote,
Speaker 1: the ice man seemed to have been fully aware that
Speaker 1: fat displays an excellent energy source. Puzzlingly, see stomach also
Speaker 1: contained particles of toxic bracken fern and mosses, which may
Speaker 1: have come from plant material to wrap his meat. Another
Speaker 1: possibility is that Otsi took the toxic fern as a
Speaker 1: medicine for intestinal problems related to parasites found in his gut.
Speaker 1: But we should mention that Otsi's diet may not be
Speaker 1: demonstrative of the diets of his era. Ancient hunter gatherers
Speaker 1: diets varied greatly according to the region where they lived.
Speaker 1: While Otsi eight meat and grains, ancient people in what
Speaker 1: is now Botswana got seventy of their calories from carbohydrates
Speaker 1: and sugars in melons and starchy roots, for example. Ancient
Speaker 1: diets were necessarily local. Today's episode was written by Patrick
Speaker 1: Jake Tiger and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on
Speaker 1: this and lots of other well preserved topics, visit our
Speaker 1: home planet, how stuff works dot com.