Prehistoric Human Deaths That Make Stubbing Your Toe Seem Pleasurable
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Why does the episode start by comparing death to a universal equalizer?
Death. It's something we all share in common, in the sense that, one day, the Grim Reaper is gonna come for you, me, Billy, and everyone else. It doesn't matter how rich you are, how good genetics you may have, or how careful you act. Death will come. It is, as they say, the great equalizer. Although, that being said, not all deaths are really equal when you think about it. As while we can hope for it to be quick and painless, sometimes the Exact opposite happens. It can be brutally painful, slow, and in some cases, both. And this has always been a scary story, as is so clearly demonstrated by prehistory, with researchers over time having found a staggering amount of humans who have died in straight up horrific manners.
I mean, in fact, that was essentially the whole trend during an entire period of our history, the Neolithic. However, once in a while, there will be a specimen uncovered that demonstrates such hardships in their final moments that they make every other specimen look pretty much PG-rated and makes stepping on a Lego sound like going to heaven. And one of the most striking examples of this is none other than our old friend, Otsy the Iceman. You may have heard of his name before, due to his popularity, but you probably didn't know how truly hard life was for Ozi, the man who died in 3230 BC, within the Erzall Alps, a mountainous region that extends between Austria's and Italy's border. He is, for now, Europe's oldest known natural mummy, having been brilliantly preserved by the mountains' freezing temperatures and leading to great interest when he was first discovered back in 1995.
Yet, at the start, no one really grasped how old the specimen truly was. As the mountaineers who discovered him, and the authorities just believed they had found a deceased climber who had died from exposure while trekking. And it wasn't until they actually removed Ertzy and discovered a trove of strange tools, including a copper axe, a chert dagger, and arrowheads, among other things, that they realized something was up, and their suspicions were confirmed after tissue sampling showed that. This dude was seriously old, as in over 5,000 years old. Though, for a while, the idea was that exposure was what killed Eertzy, but we now know that isn't the case, and in fact, the real cause was a lot more sinister.
However, before we get to what killed him, it was clear from early examinations that Eartzy in general had suffered quite a lot throughout his life. He's believed to have been around 46 at the time of his death, unless Let's just say those 46 years were not easy ones, with imaging showing a plethora of ailments. For starters, his intestines were riddled with a parasitic worm, Trichuris tricheura, also known as whipworm, a parasite that is still found around the world today, largely in tropical areas, and can cause serious symptoms if the affliction is severe, possibly leading to dysentery, anemia, and uh even rectal prolapses. Warning, do not Google that. At the same time, he was also found to have H.
pylori, another relevant pathogen, this time a bacteria, that while common, can also cause a variety of gastrointestinal issues. And while it does appear that he had the HP Asia II strain, which can be asymptomatic, it's possible that it also caused him to suffer from abdominal pain, bloating, vomiting, and weight loss. His fingernails also had what are known as bowlines, indicating. Kitty had previously been quite sick on three separate occasions in his final months, while then his lungs were literally black with soot, something that might have occurred by frequent closeness with open fires. And as if this wasn't enough, he had a set of broken ribs, was lactose intolerant, which I'm sure is horrible, I mean, no ice cream, and had extremely poor oral hygiene, with catastrophic cavities riddling his teeth, possibly due to his high-grain and high-carb diet.
And also plausibly because uh no toothbrushes and toothpaste. And yet, even with all of these things considered, this is not what killed him.
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