Faith,
I understand your point. We cannot further the topic until it is established that Oetzi is around 5000 years old. I wish that you would open your mind a bit regarding radiocarbon dating. The accuracy of this method, especially now, is amazing. It is not wild guess, it is not choosing the date that you want. Typically each test consists of three or more independant tests. The variance between these is used to determine the confidence level. In the case of the tissue from the iceman the confidence level was 95.4% that the find was between 5100 and 5300 years old. What is significant about the iceman dating was this range of dates was INDEPENDANTLY arrived at though C-14 dating of his tissue, clothing, food, arrows, grasses in his shoes, etc. Everything associated with the find is the same range of dates. Try to imagine that if C-14 were just a wild guess what would be the odds that every single sample would show the same date, especially when each is repeated at least three times.
Leaving this behind. The copper axe and arrowhead types are those of types known only from before 4000 years ago. The wood found associated with the find has been tree-ring dated to over 5000 years old. Animal dung associated with the find (as well as that missing but found older and younger) indicate that the iceman was crossing the pass during a warm period when the pass was relativey ice-free. Pollen and samples of alpine plants not currently found at that altitude indicate a temperature regime warmer than today. This corresponds to the "mid Holocene warming period that lasted from 7000 to 5000 years ago (check out
Paleoclimatology | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) for a description of this period).
So in summary the age of the iceman is not based on one radiocarbon test. It is dozens of radiocarbon tests ALL coming to the same conclusion. The archaeological evidence points to a minimum age of 4000 years old. The tree ring dating says over 5000 years old. The plants growing where he died when he died only grew there between 7000 and 5000 years ago. And the animal dung found are from species no longer present at that altitude but, like the plants, were there during the mid Holocene warming period. I hope this helps so that we can get into the genome questions!
The radiocarbon and other dating methods of the iceman are from:
shortened linkWhich is also a very good summary of radiocarbon dating and quite easy to read as well.
Edited by AdminJar, : shorten link
Edited by Lithodid-Man, : Edited to correct spelling
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