Ötzi The Iceman Mummy had a startlingly dark complexion and was bald.

The narrative of Tzi the Iceman, a remarkably well-preserved human who died in the Italian Alps some 5,300 years ago, has been further illuminated by recent genetic research.

The tragic mummy turned found to be closely related to the early farmers who came here from Anatolia in modern-day Turkey. His skin was also much darker than originally assumed, and if the hardships of Copper Age existence had taken their toll, he was probably bald.

Tzi's genome was initially sequenced in 2012, proving that he was a distant relative of the Steppe Herders who migrated from Eastern Europe. However, this ancestry was not discovered by a recent genomic investigation.

Instead, scientists discovered that shared an "unusually high proportion" of DNA with early Anatolian farmers. It appears that contamination from modern human DNA was the cause of the error.

"The first genome included 8% current human contamination. According to Professor Johannes Krause of the Leipzig-based Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the new genome contains essentially no pollution.

With regard to the bigger picture of Copper Age Europe, this fits in perfectly. Around 8,000 years ago, early farmers who came from Anatolia combined with hunter-gatherers in Western Europe.

Steppe Herders from Eastern Europe did not go to Western Europe until 4,900 years ago, after Tzi's unfortunate demise, where they gradually assimilated with the local populace.

In that he lacks that type of [Eastern European Steppe Herders] ancestry, Tzi is normal for his age, 5,300 years ago, according to Krause. Nearly all of the Europeans who lived in Tzi's era had dark skin and a large proportion of Anatolian heritage.

Two astonished German visitors hiking up in the Tztal Alps near the Austrian-Italian border in 1991 made the startling discovery of Tzi's frozen remains. We have a fairly accurate picture of his life as a result of intensive research into his remains.

We are aware of his tattoos, weak heart, and parasitic infestation. He most likely passed away from an arrow shot by an unidentified assailant.

Unexpectedly, the latest findings imply that Tzi had extremely dark skin. Even while it is well known that ancient Europeans did have rather dark skin, the researchers claim that this is the darkest skin ever found in an ancient European.

According to a statement from Albert Zink, research co-author and director of the Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies in Bolzano, it's the darkest skin tone that has been recorded in contemporary European individuals."

The mummy's complexion was originally believed to have darkened during its preservation in the ice, but it's likely that what we can see now is basically Tzi's natural skin tone. Naturally, knowing this is also crucial for the mummy's appropriate conservation, according to Zink.

Similar to how it was previously believed that Tzi's mummy had no hair because it had fallen off throughout the centuries. He may have had a significant genetic susceptibility to male pattern baldness, though. It's safe to assume that he no longer had a thick head of hair because he was around 45 years old when he passed away.

Additionally, according to his genes, he was more likely to develop type 2 diabetes and obesity. Fortunately for him, he didn't live on super-sugary beverages and donuts, and he was highly athletic, so it is doubtful that his lifestyle had a significant negative impact on his health.

Using the ABI SOLiD sequencing platform, which necessitates extensive computational infrastructure at significant economic expense, the first Iceman genome from 2012 was produced.9 It revealed the presence of modern human DNA contamination and had a low coverage (7.6) compared to the high-coverage genome created in this work.

We therefore, created a new high-coverage genome for the Iceman (15.3 coverage) from the same left iliac bone sample used for the 2012 study, with minimal modern human contamination (0.5% 0.06%), thanks to the recent development of sequencing technologies (Illumina technology) with higher output and lower cost, which have become standard in the field of ancient DNA research.

We discovered that among the analyzed European people from the fourth millennium, the Iceman exhibits an abnormally high level of ancestry related to early Neolithic farmers.