The Man in the Ice: The Discovery of a 5,000-Year-Old Body Reveals the Secrets of the Stone Age

In 1991, a couple from Nuremberg, Germany, vacationing in the Austrian Alps made a sensational discovery-a mummified, well-preserved body, half emerged from a glacier, which turned out to be the corpse of a 5300-year-old Neolithic man, fully equipped with ax, flint dagger, bow and arrows, wooden stave and belt-pouch. Dubbed ``the Iceman,'' he had charcoal tattoos on his legs and feet and a traveling medicine kit-pieces of birch fungus known to contain a natural antibiotic substance highly active against deadly bacteria. His clothes-cap, leggings, fur poncho, loincloth, shoes, grass cloak-comprise the most ancient complete set of garments found in Europe. In an astonishing, exhaustively detailed report (with 32 color photos), which reads like a forensic mystery, Spindler, the Austrian archeologist who led the investigation, reconstructs efforts to identify this prehistoric hunter's native village, culture and cause of death. A surprising picture emerges of Neolithic folk medicine, farming, stockbreeding and culture. (Feb.)