BOLZANO, ITALY, June 23 (DC Times Online) — A study published in the peer-reviewed journal Microbiome says researchers found four cold-adapted yeast species on the 5,300-year-old remains of Ötzi the Iceman, using genetic reconstruction and culture tests on material from the mummy.
The team at Eurac Research said the traces turned up in skin samples, meltwater inside the mummy and stomach contents. The researchers described Ötzi’s remains as a “dynamic biological interface” in which ancient glacier-derived microbes and modern contaminants can coexist under museum conditions.
According to the study, the team also found degraded and modern DNA fragments, a result the authors said is consistent with the possibility that some microbes survived in subzero preservation while others were introduced after discovery and during conservation.
The researchers said they were able to grow multiple microbe species and reported four viable isolates, with three able to use phenol, a compound used to prevent fungal growth, as a food source.
Ötzi was discovered in the Alps in 1991 and is now housed in a cold cell at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy. The museum says the body was naturally preserved in glacier ice and dates to about 3300 BC, making him Europe’s oldest known natural human mummy.
