The Iceman's Last Meal Consisted of Fat, Wild Meat, and Cereals

Frank Maixner*, Dmitrij Turaev, Amaury Cazenave-Gassiot, Marek Janko, Ben Krause-Kyora, Michael R. Hoopmann, Ulrike Kusebauch, Mark Sartain, Gea Guerriero, Niall O'Sullivan, Matthew Teasdale, Giovanna Cipollini, Alice Paladin, Valeria Mattiangeli, Marco Samadelli, Umberto Tecchiati, Andreas Putzer, Mine Palazoglu, John Meissen, Sandra LöschPhilipp Rausch, John F. Baines, Bum Jin Kim, Hyun Joo An, Paul Gostner, Eduard Egarter-Vigl, Peter Malfertheiner, Andreas Keller, Robert W. Stark, Markus Wenk, David Bishop, Daniel G. Bradley, Oliver Fiehn, Lars Engstrand, Robert L. Moritz, Philip Doble, Andre Franke, Almut Nebel, Klaus Oeggl, Thomas Rattei, Rudolf Grimm, Albert Zink

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

39 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The history of humankind is marked by the constant adoption of new dietary habits affecting human physiology, metabolism, and even the development of nutrition-related disorders. Despite clear archaeological evidence for the shift from hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture in Neolithic Europe [1], very little information exists on the daily dietary habits of our ancestors. By undertaking a complementary -omics approach combined with microscopy, we analyzed the stomach content of the Iceman, a 5,300-year-old European glacier mummy [2, 3]. He seems to have had a remarkably high proportion of fat in his diet, supplemented with fresh or dried wild meat, cereals, and traces of toxic bracken. Our multipronged approach provides unprecedented analytical depth, deciphering the nutritional habit, meal composition, and food-processing methods of this Copper Age individual. Maixner et al. report the dietary reconstruction of the Iceman's last meal using a combined multi-omics approach. The stomach content analysis of the 5,300-year-old glacier mummy shows that the Iceman's diet preceding his death was a mix of carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids, well adjusted to the energetic requirements of his high-altitude trekking.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2348-2355.e9
JournalCurrent Biology
Volume28
Issue number14
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 23 Jul 2018
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • European Copper Age mummy
  • Iceman
  • ancient DNA
  • diet
  • last meal
  • lipidomics
  • microscopy
  • multi-omics study
  • proteomics
  • stomach content

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