It has been said that shortly before Otzi passed away, he had suffered a blow to the head as well as a few fairly severe wounds such as a wound in his left shoulder as well as a deep cut in his right palm which suggests that the Ice-main might have been involved in an act of violence using a sharp weapon like a knife. X-rays later revealed a stone arrowhead lodged into his left shoulder. An autopsy done on Otzi showed traces of blood found in the brain, which indicates that the blow to the head that he suffered would have been very forceful.
Another interpretation comes from a research team of scientists led by Frank Jakobus Rühli at the University of Zurich. Who carried out a non-invasive computer scanning process to scan Otzi's body, these tests produced results indicating a 13 millimetre tear in an artery in Otzi's torso. Otzi appears to have suffered massive bleeding as a result of the tear, which eventually killed him. The tear in the artery was caused by the arrow head that was embedded in his left shoulder, Otzi's killer had shot him with the arrow and then pulled the shaft out. The position of his body when he was found leads researchers to believe that Otzi was sitting in a semi-upright position when he died.
An X-Ray image of the arrowhead embedded in Otzi's shoulder.
Source:
Patrizia Pernter, Paul Gostner, Eduard Egarter Vigl, Frank Jakobus Rühli. [in press]. Radiologic proof for the Iceman's cause of death (ca. 5,300 BP). Journal of Archaeological Science, to be published later this year.
Image:
http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=otzi+x+rays&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1213&bih=671&tbm=isch&tbnid=6cqORDZgaaM5TM:&imgrefurl=http://donsmaps.com/otzi.html&docid=Ge4nq2ej1Z6NeM&imgurl=http://donsmaps.com/images9/otzi431.jpg&w=845&h=1100&ei=3wtrT_iiLKOSiAfB2JXjBQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&dur=462&sig=103853288045095951118&page=1&tbnh=148&tbnw=115&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=104&ty=118&vpx=107&vpy=133&hovh=150&hovw=116
