Here are some sites reporting the latest work on the remains, nicknamed Otzi, found in the Italian Alps in 1991, and dated between 5100 and 5350 B.P.

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/8-12-2003-44155.asp

http://www.bvalphaserver.com/postt25964.html

Here are some quotes from the former site:

"(he) had killed or injured at least four other people...blood traces found on his clothes and weapons...revealed four different DNA patterns, none of them Oetzi's."

He had a "formidable array of weapons: a bronze axe, a bow with arrows in a quiver, a flint dagger and a smaller, sharper knife."

"He succeeded in getting away [after being shot]...otherwise he would not still have had his weapons with him, and above all his precious bronze axe. Perhaps, though, the killer got to him and Oetzi managed to react, killing him before disappearing into the mountains."

But a previous detailed analysis of the objects he carried reported: "Ötzi was a ... hunter, who died carrying a bow, a quiver of stitched leather, a skinner made of deer antler, a coiled bowstring, two finished arrows, a stone flake knife attached to a handle, a small triangular blade, a small unshaped flake like a utility knife, and a tapered drill and gouge made from flint."

"One of his tools was a pressure flaker – the oldest in the world that I'm aware of – a small chip of reindeer antler soaked in a thick pitch to stop it from drying out and becoming brittle, and that was shoved into a small piece of wood, and he used that to finely retouch and sharpen edges."

"The two arrows had an unusual fletching, where the feather was trimmed to only about 5 mm and glued in a spiral pattern around the arrow shaft, to make it twist as it flew through the air. The arrows were one metre long and very light, ideally suited for shooting above the treeline."

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Here http://geowords.com/histbooknetscape/b03.htm
is another description of the artefacts:

"...this Neolithic man, 40 to 53 years of age, wore a cap of brown bear fur, a coat of leather and goat fur, a skirt of plant fiber, never changed leather underwear, leather leggings and shoes stuffed with straw. Tattooed (15 groups of short lines as 1 and 2 on back, right knee, and left ankle), intestinally whipworm ridden (likely a common condition then), mildly arthritic. He had with him a wooden backpack, quiver full of viburnum and dogwood arrows (12 good and two broken), yew bow (bear and chamois—ibex—could then be hunted), copper ax, flint dagger, birchbark containers, and a leather "fanny pack" with sewing materials and flint blades. From undigested hop hornbean pollen that palinologist Klaus Oeggl identified in his gut, the season was Spring when this shrub is in blossom. Analysis of his hair shows he had for long been a strict vegetarian, although his abnormally hardened arteries indicate formerly a high cholesterol intake. Possibly he was a herdsman making his way to the alps (pastures on north facing mountain slopes to which sheep are driven in the summer). If so, from his lack of woollen clothes, in his community, sheep were for meat only. More likely, from his equipment, he was a hunter. From DNA extracted from his colon content, his last meal ... was red deer meat, possibly along with wild cereals of the sort he had munched on earlier, when, along with a few flowering plants, he had eaten goat meat. Being above the snow line he freeze-dried. He remained unmoved, and had become concealed by glacial ice, until in a week of unusual thaw his head and shoulder became exposed."

Here http://www.ping.be/olivier_picard/history/oetzi03.htm
is a description of the ax. The blade was less than 4 inches long. What use was a small copper ax to a hunter or herdsman? Copper is too soft to make a good tool. Was it a curiosity to be traded to tribes who did not work metal? A ceremonial artefact?

But when another archeologist transmogrifies this ax into a "formidable" "bronze" "weapon", it seems this is an attempt to sensationalize the find, and add drama and excitement. We know that both Austria and Italy fought for years for possession of the body, because of the potential for tourist dollars. Italy won the scrap, and has made a lot of money so far, and hopes to make more, from tourists.
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Here are some facts that make me suspicious.

The arrowhead that was supposed to have killed him was 21 mm long and 17 mm wide. His shoulder blade stopped its path. The only way a wound such as that could have killed a tough little mountain man like him is if he died of infection or he bled to death. There is evidence the shaft had been pulled out, and the wound stitched shut. That makes it unlikely that he bled to death.

The axe, in the cited account, was 'bronze', but in other accounts it was copper. That's an important distinction. Bronze was hard enough to make a good tool/weapon, but copper was not. The ax was very small.

He was a hunter but ate no meat? A herdsman who didn't eat lamb or mutton, and didn't use their wool?

And DNA shows that he killed or wounded three other people?

- DNA would not show when the blood was deposited on Otzi's tools/weapons and clothes. It could have come from a number of causes: cutting arrows from another's body; tatooing another (Otzi had lots of tatoos himslef); contamination by one or more of the many people who handled the tools and body and clothing after its discovery and before it was put in the lab. (the body was removed from the site where it was found by amateurs and done so badly that parts of the body were torn away and never recovered. Rumor has it that bits (e.g. the genitals) were stolen by memento-seekers.)

This whole thing is a mess. But where money is involved, it gets out of control and absurd claims, as well as unscientific conclusions, are published.

So what?

Discredits science, that's what.

What do you think?

I think the only thing questionable here are the sites you're looking at. I watched a special on the Discovery Science channel about Otzi about a month ago, and none of the questionable things you brought up from those sites were even mentioned. Perhaps you could find a few more references and compare? Try www.discoverychannel.com.

What we need to keep in mind is the dates of the release of the Discovery channel program to which you refer, and of the news release to which I refer.

Actually Discovery Channel did cover the highly sensationalized speculations also, in August 2003. "A fatal battle marked the last 48 hours of Ötzi the Iceman, the world's oldest and best-preserved mummy, according to new dramatic findings."

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20030811/iceman.html

They even 'dramatized' the supposed murder of Otzi, showing him facing a hairy brutish opponent.

They have shown a little caution:

"[evidence] suggesting that Ötzi was killed by one or more assailants in a fight",

but I find in general that Discovery coverage was just as sensationalized as the Italian news release.

That may be true, but that doesn't mean the underlying scientific work is questionable, as was your question. I merely suggested you look at other sources. Try Archeaology magazine, for instance.

Mommy says: "I think the only thing questionable here are the sites you're looking at."

You think, but you do not show.

But when I looked at Mommy's recommended site, the Discovery site, I found the same thing.

I reported this, in my second post.

Then Mommy says, "... but that doesn't mean the underlying scientific work is questionable..."

But you see I didn't say that the underlying scientific work was questionable, did I?

I said that the claims were absurd. I said that because the evidence does not suport the highly speculative conscusions.

You say I'm looking at questionable sites.

Okay, let's see you find better sources than those I cited. Let's see you cite them here, so we can check them out. Let's see you show what the "underlying science" was that led to these conclusions. Let's see if it's different from that to which I have referred above.

Show the other sites which you seem to believe will show, or do report, more well-founded conclusions than the ones I cited.

In other words, do a little research yourself instead of just trying to discredit mine.

If you had checked my first site reference above, you would have seen that the quote "He succeeded in getting away [after being shot]... Otherwise he would not still have had his weapons with him, and above all his precious bronze axe. Perhaps, though, the killer got to him and Oetzi managed to react, killing him before disappearing into the mountains," is a direct quote from the Italian archaeologist at the university of Trento, who first proposed the analysis.

What better source could you quote, than the scientist who came up with the hypothesis?

If you had checked the second site I posted above, you would have seen that another archaeologist, Tom Loy, an expert in prehistoric tools and director of the University of Queensland's Institute of Molecular Bioscience in Brisbane, who had analyzed the blood samples, and is quoted as concluding "The pattern suggests that someone was leaning on his shoulders for support".

What better source can you find, except another scientist who supported the questionable hypotheses?

I am not defending any scientific work done, or any sites. I am simply saying (again) that you can't question the work by reading what other people say abotu the work. Read the WORK.